Moxie Girlz: What, Barbie Worry?

Related entries:
Moxie Girlz: How Many Licks Does It Take....? (07.16.2009):
http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/b2evolution/blog1.php?p=42

These Girlz Got Moxie: I Found The Moxie Girlz At Target! (07.22.2009):
http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/b2evolution/blog1.php?p=43

Robyn Barnette: "I Will Not Do A Moxie Girlz Fan Website" (08.4.2009):
http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/b2evolution/blog1.php?p=45

For years, I have always insisted that MGA Entertainment was a company full of surprises. And it looks like this company and its President and CEO Isaac Larian may have pulled off a big surprise with its brand new Moxie Girlz fashion doll line. I got a chance to view more images of the Moxie Girlz products and collections, and I'm impressed. Moxie Girlz is actually much better than what I had originally perceived it to be.

Several people within MGA Entertainment came across these two entries I posted on my Bratz Heaven Blog:

Get Your Moxie On! Introducing....Moxie Girlz (06.15.2009):
http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/b2evolution/blog1.php?p=32

Moxie Schmoxie: Moxie Girlz Revealed.... (06.18.2009):
http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/b2evolution/blog1.php?p=33

This company was so infuriated with what I wrote that their objective was not so much about creating a successor to Bratz — it was about vindicating me after I slammed the Moxie Girlz for all the nasty things I wrote about them. Yes, I will admit that I stated the Moxie Girlz was doomed to fail. Yes, I will admit that I stated the Moxie Girlz was "just another fashion doll line that would be ruthlessly disposed of and entombed in Barbie's wake." Yes, I will admit that I stated the Moxie Girlz will end up at the nearest Dollar General store. And yes, I will admit that I thought the name of this brand new fashion doll line reflected something that MGA Entertainment created at the last minute....or to be more exact, five minutes.

Then again, I'm not the only one who expressed pessimism about Moxie Girlz: Several other doll collectors believed the same theories I mentioned about this brand new fashion doll line, and their initial opinions were a lot more harsh than what I wrote! If a couple of blog entries can inspire MGA Entertainment to prove me wrong and create a quality successor to Bratz, then I am somewhat comforted knowing that I did my job in making this company aware of what is expected when the Moxie Girlz hit store shelves during Fall 2009. However, I also think MGA Entertainment and Mr. Larian have a much more ambitious objective in mind with the Moxie Girlz, and it is beyond creating a brand new fashion doll line intended as a successor to Bratz.

I guess I've been too confined in the Bratz universe to expand my horizons, that I anticipate any new fashion doll lines developed and manufactured by MGA Entertainment to be just like Bratz. Yummi-Land was a completely different fashion doll line than Bratz, but I thought that it was a very unique and creative fashion doll line because of the sweet colorful environment it created. In fact, the Bratz Heaven colors (fuchsia, blue, violet, pink, hazel, orange) were inspired by the Yummi-Land Crème Soda Pop Girls collection, and that's quite odd since Bratz Heaven was intended to promote and support the only girls with a passion for fashion — not girls who "were as sweet as they smelled." Although I found Yummi-Land too "kiddy" for my taste, I still believed it would be something of a successor to Bratz. Unfortunately, MGA Entertainment discontinued Yummi-Land after two years due to poor sales. In retrospect, Yummi-Land was overshadowed by Bratz, quickly becoming a "forgotten" doll line. It never really built the fanbase that it could have and never really gathered the momentum to become an established product line for the company.

While Moxie Girlz is not the same as Bratz, it appears MGA Entertainment has a great opportunity to get back in the race and remain a serious competitor in the fashion doll business. Okay, so the names of these Moxie Girlz collections such as Moxie Girlz Art-titude and Moxie Girlz Jammaz sound cheesy. And based on the initial images of the Moxie Girlz, the dolls themselves look....well, they're okay, but not spectacular enough to convince me to purchase them. They look more like 10-year-old little girls! That's what makes the Moxie Girlz such a hard sell for me, but I guess that's the demographic MGA Entertainment is targeting with the Moxie Girlz, not so much adult collectors such as myself.

What I am impressed with about Moxie Girlz is that the products and collections demonstrate how the characters in this brand new fashion doll line have their own passion for fashion, their own individuality, their own style in expressing themselves, and that each character has a certain personality reflected in her fashion passion. I'll give credit to MGA Entertainment for harnessing those attributes into the Moxie Girlz, since these were the same attributes that made Bratz the overwhelming phenomenon that it is and that it will forever be remembered as. It emphasizes how this company pays attention to trends that click with teenage and preteen girls (i.e., "tweens"), without doing things the old-fashioned standardized way.

With all these attributes about fashion passion, individuality, expression, and personality, will it be enough for the Moxie Girlz to be successful? The big, bad world of Mattel seems to think so, and it is conceiving a war plan to cripple this fashion doll line with the misconception that MGA Entertainment is a company which creates consumer products by stealing ideas and employees from other toy companies. MGA Entertainment has lost a lot of trust with its vendors, its licensees, and its customers because of such misconceptions, never mind the ongoing litigation against Mattel over the rights to the Bratz franchise. The company will have to work assiduously to earn that trust again, and Moxie Girlz represents an opportunity to convince a skeptical public that it can develop and manufacture some of the most innovative consumer products in the marketplace without stealing ideas, employees, or anything else to accomplish its long term objectives. Every ending in life is a new beginning, and for MGA Entertainment it's a new beginning to start fresh and put behind all the recklessness of the past eight years. But what a great eight years it was.

Speculation abounds over the Moxie Girlz, and MGA Entertainment has been put under a microscope in order to defend itself from any criticism and cynicism intended to disrupt the potential success of this brand new fashion doll line. Among the questions that are being asked: Does MGA Entertainment believe the Moxie Girlz will be a successful fashion doll line? Will Moxie Girlz pose a serious threat to Barbie, much less Mattel's own "Bratz" dolls? Do consumers still have this negative impression that Moxie Girlz was "illegally" developed and manufactured by some former designer at Mattel who sold his trade secrets to MGA Entertainment so that this brand new fashion doll line would be realized? And, perhaps the most important question of all: Did the people behind the development and manufacturing of the Moxie Girlz previously work at Mattel?

The toy industry was a much kinder industry when Bratz was first introduced in 2001. MGA Entertainment was just your small neighborhood toy company, always searching for the next innovation that would catapult it into a recognized and renowned competitor in the industry. The company had hoped Bratz would be that next innovation to pull off this accomplishment and become a "Barbie beater." However, Bratz failed in its first year and most consumers believed Bratz was just a fad that would last one season, never to be heard of again. Even Mattel believed Bratz was a failure, and the thought of litigating Bratz out of existence never occured. Only when MGA Entertainment continued building the brand did Bratz start outselling and outperforming Barbie during the franchise's peak years from 2003 through 2006, and it threw executives at Mattel into a panic. Tim Kilpin, former Senior Vice President of Girls Marketing And Design at Mattel, wrote several documents stating that Mattel needed to develop a war plan to kill Bratz. One of those documents was an E-Mail dated April 2, 2004, under the title "Confidential: The Barbie Call To Action," where Kilpin mentioned that, "....the Barbie business is in serious decline....the old way of building the Barbie brand just doesn't work anymore. We have been out-thought and out-executed. And it stops now." (also, see this: http://cannellefraiche.bratzheaven.com/articles/timkilpinemail.txt)

That type of context illustrates how the toy industry has now become a very savage industry, and Mattel is a perfect example of how savage it has become. But many other toy companies also developed and manufactured consumer products that have evolved too big for Bratz to emerge a serious competitor: Playmates (Disney Fairies), Hasbro (Littlest Pet Shop), Play Along Toys (Hannah Montana). It isn't so much Mattel litigating Bratz out of the consumer marketplace, as it is the consumer marketplace has dramatically changed for Bratz to remain a profitable and iconic commodity. This is where the Moxie Girlz come in, and despite how successful this brand new fashion doll line aspires to be, it may not last long enough if consumers are not purchasing them — or worse, if Mattel threatens litigation against MGA Entertainment over the Moxie Girlz because of some pissy accusation about "laid-off employees working for a competitor."

MGA Entertainment is confident that with Moxie Girlz, it can once again knock Barbie off her pedestal and set the house on fire at Mattel. The initial product lineup indicates the potential for the Moxie Girlz to be successful, but I still do not see myself supporting this brand new fashion doll line. I've been a Bratz fan since July 2004, and any transition to any other fashion doll line would be immensely difficult. Bratz is the only fashion doll line I really and truly ever identified with. That could change over time if Moxie Girlz grows on me and becomes as much an overwhelming phenomenon as Bratz was during its eight-year tenure. Nobody is certain how long this brand new fashion doll line will last. If Moxie Girlz achieves its pinnacle of success two or three years from now, and if I see something about Moxie Girlz that I can identify with, that's when I will realize how stupid I was to say all these nasty things about Moxie Girlz, that I may end up supporting this fashion doll line after all. Heck, I didn't like the Bratz dolls when I first heard of them, but look at what has transpired with Bratz eight years later.

Of course, Mattel has other ideas, and you can be rest assured that it is keeping a very watchful eye on Moxie Girlz. The threat of Barbie still looms over the heads of Mr. Larian and the many wonderful people at MGA Entertainment. It won't be long before we endure this same vicious cycle all over again where Mattel eliminates Moxie Girlz from the consumer marketplace and litigates MGA Entertainment into bankruptcy and destruction. Even if the evidence finds that Moxie Girlz was not created by a former Mattel employee who breached his contract and sold trade secrets to MGA Entertainment, Mattel will come out aggressive and do whatever it takes to establish its complete and total domination in the toy industry. Mr. Larian was right: Anyone who dares enter the fashion doll business has a target on their back. Beware of the snipers perched high above 333 Continental Boulevard in El Segundo, California, because they're watching, they're waiting, and they're ready to fire the first shot.