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)
