Beyond Barbie: Mattel chases collectors as it seeks growth

Mattel hopes to drive sales for brands such as Hot Wheels and Barbie by tapping into older customers and collectors.

Mattel's Barbie brand continues to see growth off the back of 2023's Barbie movie.

Mattel is hoping to apply the Barbie magic to more brands within its portfolio of iconic toys as it doubles down on promoting play for all ages.

Taking a leaf out of Lego’s book, the toy company behind Hot Wheels, Barbie, Fisher Price, Uno and Matchbox wants to engage new customers with its brands, particularly older fans and collectors.

Mattel Asia Pacific managing director Paul Faulkner said the business was tapping into a strategy that was perfected off the back of the Barbie film in 2023, which was still delivering significantly strong year-on-year growth for the brand.

“The Barbie movie was a cultural milestone as well as a commercial driver and we really managed to reignite interest in that brand, not only with young girls, but across all age groups, including collectors,” Mr Faulkner said.

“The uplift we saw in Australia, and across Asia, wasn’t just in toys, but also in the overall brand engagement, we had partnerships that went from burgers at Grill’d to apparel at Cotton On. The way that we were able to execute and tap into that cultural moment in Australia in particular, was exciting.”

In addition to its strategy around partnerships and collaborations, Mattel is also leveraging bespoke products via its Mattel Creations site, which features limited edition toys and products for fans to collect.

“ ‘Kidults’ are a large part of our revenue globally,” said Mr Faulkner. “We’ve seen Hot Wheels collectors and Barbie collectors become very active and that segment of our business has grown very strongly in Australia and New Zealand.

“We’ve tapped into that with Mattel Creations, which is a bespoke line of products that taps into cultural moments, but also allows us to explore the opportunity of our brands in different ways with collaborations across the marketplace.”

Mr Faulkner points to a recent collaboration with Australian fashion brand Romance Was Born that saw Mattel brands feature in bespoke runway apparel at Sydney Fashion Week.

Mattel is also driving growth as the play positioning helps blur the traditional categories of boys and girls toys.

“We’re finding more and more girls, for instance, playing and collecting Hot Wheels cars.

“Hot wheels grew 7 per cent in Q1 this year globally, and that’s growth on growth on growth for the brand.

“We wouldn’t get there if it was just with male consumers alone and we’re seeing more and more girls coming to the Hot Wheels world.”

It doesn’t end there. The success of the Barbie movie, and the popularity of Ken, has also helped boost sales and driven the launch of a new range of “Kenbassador” dolls. This new range launched in April with a doll of American basketballer LeBron James.

Mattel is also looking to continue its film-based collaborations with 14 films in development through Mattel Studios, the recently launched entity, which merged Mattel’s TV and film units into one business. Among the studios slate of TV and film content to launch this year is a live action Masters of the Universe film and the Matchbox movie, which features action star John Cena.

Mr Faulkner said the movies aimed to highlight the brands while always linking back to the idea of play in all forms for all ages.

“Our responsibility is to provide different channels for the consumer to play with our brands. It’s not just about the toy.

“When we talk about ways that we can take these brands to consumers to encourage play, it’s film, TV, partnerships with Cotton On and others, is a great way that we share that message of play.

“The Barbie film reignited the idea that a young girl can be anything and I think we reflected that across the movie.

But I think, it also reignited that passion for playing with dolls.

“And helping us position play with dolls in a different way was really exciting. We’ve seen that transcend from 2023 through to today.”