Mattel’s Hello Barbie may not have generated sales, but it did generate buzz.

Mattel’s Hello Barbie may not have generated sales, but it did generate buzz. The talking doll, which uses WiFi and speech recognition to have a conversation with kids, earned low sales and poor ratings due to technical issues. But according to the editor of toy review site TTPM.com, Hello Barbie and Barbie’s new body-positive revamp have made “Barbie a topic of discussion again,”  and that may have been all they needed to turn sales around: in February Mattel reported “a better-than-expected fourth quarter” when Barbie sales went up for the first time in two years. (Bloomberg)