Barbie Fans Seeing Pink Collectors Boycotting Over Doll Maker’s Goofs

Angry over bad haircuts, tight shoes and efforts to muzzle their magazines, Barbie collectors are boycotting the doll’s maker, firing off angry letters on pink stationery.

The flurry of correspondence organizers are calling the Pink Tidal Wave is part of a monthlong anti-Mattel rebellion dubbed the Pink Protest.

Angry collectors are threatening the unthinkable: buying Barbie rival, Ashton-Drake’s Gene doll, named for actress Gene Tierney.

“It’s just like the ‘60s,” said 48-year-old Norita Bergmann, whose Great Lakes chapter of the Barbie Collectors Club had a run-in with Mattel over using Barbie in its name. “It’s us vs. them.”

Mattel is taking collector complaints seriously. In an extraordinary summit, the toymaker recently sent three top executives to meet with two leading collectors, but talks ended after six hours with key issues unresolved.

Boycott organizers hope many of the estimated 250,000 Barbie collectors worldwide will not buy from Mattel Inc. during May.

The boycott isn’t likely to dent sales of Barbie, among the world’s best-selling toys with $1.7 billion in 1996 sales, but market experts agree that avid Barbie collectors contribute to the doll’s mystique, elevating a child’s plaything to a cultural icon.

The dispute stems from a series of manufacturing goofs and marketing blunders that hurt collectors.

Poodle Parade Barbie, a replica of a 1965 doll, was released with hair seemingly trimmed with a chain saw. Then came Barbie’s friend, Francie, another vintage doll reissue, whose undersized shoes split when placed on her feet.

Mattel also misjudged the market, underproducing some collector dolls and overproducing others, causing prices to soar, then fall. Early buyers of Star Trek Barbie who paid nearly $80 each got burned, for example, when store prices later dropped to about $30 per doll.

Some collectors also are angry at Mattel for attempting to restrict use of the name Barbie. Last month, Mattel filed a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against Miller’s, a magazine for Barbie fans that often features barbed product reviews.

Mattel is working to correct marketing missteps and promised to make things right for collectors who bought Poodle Parade Barbie or Francie dolls. But the company refuses to back down on its copyright lawsuit.