I hadn’t recently given much thought to children’s toys. Then I saw pair of incredible Ted Talks.
The first was by Mckenna Pope about her success in getting Mattel to make their Easy-Bake Oven emotionally safe for her kid brother. She was 13 when she did the work and 14 when she spoke.
The second talk was by Prof Christopher Bell about the systematic lack of superhero toys for girls. His report shows that others failed to have similar success with Disney/Star Wars or Disney/Marvel. Much larger, much better-organized groups have failed where this one 13 year old succeeded.
Does this merely tell us something about Mattel and Disney, or is there something truly important that Pope can teach us?
Whether we can replicate her success or not, we definitely need to give her big points for suckage reduction.
I bet that Stan Lee would be proud of her.
