Mattel, Seeking a New Superpower, Gets Women to Design Action Figures for Girls
The result is less buxom and more athletic than the typical Wonder Woman.
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Inside Mattel’s headquarters just south of Los Angeles International Airport, Christine Kim grabs a shield and fires a plastic disc from it across a conference room. "I'm going to be playing with all my boys, deflecting their bullets and then be like, 'I'm going to shoot you,'" says Kim, one of Mattel’s top toy designers and a mother of three. "It goes up to 20 feet."
Kim has in her possession what Mattel sees as a groundbreaking idea, one that could help end the years of malaise that sunk its sales and stock price and sent the company's last chief executive packing. But even more important is that this may mean the toymaker has reconnected with its most important customer: little girls.