Content area
Full Text
What do you do when you can no longer count on your best girlfriend? For a long time now, Jill Barad, CEO of Mattel, Inc., has been there for Barbie. She may need to break some ties. The world's largest toymaker reported double-digit drops in Barbie sales through the first half of 1998the first such declines in five years. At best, the El Segundo, Calif., company predicts only 3% growth for Barbie sales in 1998; some analysts are less optimistic. Bad news since Barbie currently accounts for more than a third of Mattel's $4.8 billion in revenues. "I'm concerned about the near term because there's still a lot of Barbie inventory," says analyst Sean McCallan of Gerard Klauer Mattison. "Expanding its existing base of core products has to be Mattel's first priority." But McCallan is optimistic for the long term. The reason for his confidence: the 46-year-old Barad, who's been steering Mattel since January 1997. "She has some of the sharpest marketing skills out there, and a great product sense," he says. "I'm impressed by the discipline with which she and her management team have approached product expansion."
Moving beyond Barbie is just one challenge Barad faces. Another obstacle is the announced plan by Toys 'R' Us to cut its U.S. inventory levels by $500 million, from $2 billion, over the next two years. Mattel reaps nearly a fifth of its sales from the retailer and attributed its soft second quarter 1998 directly to these changes.
Other...