Bratz Dolls, Ethical or Not?!

Bratz Dolls – Ethical or not 

 

Firstly, let's see a piece of video from YouTube which is about some feedback from parents about Bratz Dolls, the one who is 'riding banana'. 

Introduction

Sex appeal as a marketing strategy during the last few years has become a very vital way to have marketers launched new products into market, such as the Uniliver’s Lynx, Calvin Klein and Gucci. All of these ads that include the graphic sex images made the ads to become controversial, extreme and perverse. However, these ads in turn are used everywhere in family print media, digital media to out-of-home ads in our daily life. As a doll brand, Bratz is seen as being overly sexualized and a bad role model for little girls, which is full of inappropriate dressings. In this report, the main reasons why Brats Dolls cause offense and the relative recommendations will be stated and explained.

Reasons why Bratz Dolls cause offense

Bratz was a big success and launched into doll market together with different types of media (Mail online, 2006), such as movies, TV ads, social media and animations that were featured by Bratz characters (Keys, 2007). Its target consumers are those who are ages from 7 and 11 years old girls, but the girls as young as 4 years old may also influenced by association with the target consumers (American Psychological Association, 2008). Thus, due to the young age of the target consumers, media used and how the marketers attract young consumers will be carefully considered. The following five reasons are why we thinking Bratz Dolls cause offense.

Sex appeal used for children

Sex appeal as a marketing strategy exists in the dolls’ appearance and its advertisements in the marketing campaign. From different media Bratz used in the marketing campaign, we found out Bratz Dolls deliberately used images and words of sex to attract children’s attention. According to the research conducted by University of New Mexico in 2011, the sex appeal used in different media that targets to 7-11 years old children possibly lead to sexism and other social concerns. As with this result of the research, we believe sex appeal should not be used in the marketing campaign which particularly focuses on the young children.

Can be against social ethics and morality

The advertisements could be against the basic morality and business ethics (Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M, 2013, p. 25). In the global market, Internet could spread advertisements all over the world. All the decisions, such as which media should be used, which advertising strategy is appropriate and what content of the advertisement should be included, made by the marketers have to give consideration to the target audiences’ family’s life cycle, education background and religious background and society’s acceptance norms. In our case, most parents think it not ethical or moral for Bratz to advertise a doll by the scenes of wild party, self-orientation and bikini girls. Further, this group of parents does not want their children grow up with these ‘tarty’ dolls, either. 

Lack in corporate social ethical responsibility  

Lacking in corporate social ethical responsibility is also an important factor where we think Bratz Dolls are un-ethical. Since the major products of the company are for children, the company must be very sensitive to social reactions and concerns about the children’s psychological and physical health. Meanwhile, different cultural belief and expectations about a corporation could cause ethical conflict between consumers and the company, therefore, ruin the brand.

Twisting body image amongst children

The sexually explicit marketing could twist the body image among consumers (Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative, 2011), especially for the Brats’ target consumers, the 4-11 years old children, which could lead to an obsession over the body both for boys and girls. More specifically, sexual harassment could be caused when this group of young consumers grows up.  Using sex appeal in a marketing campaign could lead to social ills and therefore, the opposite affect of the marketing objectives will occur.

Negative influence on purchasing decision makers

When consumers make purchasing decisions, the decisions generally will be made in our socialization process in our case (Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M 2013, p.41). In a family, which is a socialization process, when children who indicate their desire to possess a doll, their parents would make the final decision whether to buy the dolls or not. As the Bratz Dolls use sex appeal as their marketing strategies to attract target audiences, the children’s parents would be easily offended by the exaggerated advertisements in some specific cultural groups such as the more conservative Asian cultural families. As a result, the sales which is one of the marketing objective would be decreased.

Managerial recommendations

According to our explanations why Bratz Dolls cause offense to society, we come with three managerial recommendations to this brand.

Changing market strategy

As we can see, although using sex appeal could to some extend enhance brand awareness, build up high REACH and opportunity to see and recall the core message of the advertisements, this strategy which is used to attract the 7-11 year old children is inappropriate, from which a failure on enhancing brand equity will exist and could be against the basic moral and business ethics. In the short run, the brand could increase its sales by using sex appeal, but in the long run, the brand needs to develop a brand identity which could be obtained only by positive marketing and marketing communication programs. That is to say, to develop a strong and unique brand image in the consumers’ mind in the long run instead of being sexually orientated for the little children in the short run to increase its sales would be more important.

Enhancing ethical responsibility

Enhancing the commitment to ethical responsibility will be a good way for Bratz to re-build its reputation amongst the target audience. Due to the target audience is the 7-11 years old children, Bratz Dolls and business behaviors have created a big amount of ethical issues. Just as we mentioned before, the company has to be sensitive and quick enough to the reaction from the public to its products and advertisements. The children’s psychological health and their rights to have a positive environment to grow will be given a high priority. Further, the new globalization makes the products and advertisements spread to the other countries that have different culture in an incredible speed, company needs to put different legal and religious systems into its considerations (Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, p.361).

Paying more attention on different cultures

This recommendation includes two parts, which are producing and selling products to different countries in terms of different cultures and make Bratz Doll as a symbol. Arising from the boom in international marketing, we believe one brand cannot just simply use the same products as they provide to the domestic market because of the dressing style and cultural issue. Also, the marketing campaign could be more specific to the target culture because of the offense could be caused to some demographic groups. What is more, the doll itself should be advertised as a symbol instead of being advertised as a character with incorrect personality and wrong message to the young girls. Aside from the doll, company could provide different accessories such as the suits for different occasions, which could be professional, sports as well as other social activities.  

Conclusion:

This company, MGA during the last decade faced serious difficulties and challenges. Some researchers recommended that what the company needs to do is to urgently re-build the reputation. Although it has admits its low commitment to its corporate ethical responsibility, it might be a little too late to re-connect to its consumers since the uncertainty of the US economy’s future. Reputations are hard won and easily lost (Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, p.350), it is not easy to re-build once it is lost. Therefore, we think the reputation building should be accomplished throughout from the beginning of brand launching of any brand.

Reference

2006, Over-sexed and over here: The 'tarty' Bratz Dolls, Mail online,<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-411266/Over-sexed-The-tarty-Bratz-Doll.html#ixzz30R5qfy6J>, viewed 27 April 2014.

2010, Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, American Psychological Association, <http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf>, viewed 5 April 2014.

Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, Business Ethics 2009 Update: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, Cengage Learning, Melbourne, Australia.

Keys L 2007, Bratz: they’re cool, hot and controversial. Jewish Journal, <http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/bratz_theyre_cool_hot_and_controversial_20071102>, viewed 22 April 2014.

Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M 2013, MKTG2, 2^nd edn, Cengage Learning, Melbourne, Australia.

Speck J, Gutierrez A & Sawayda J 2011, Marketing Campaigns use Sex Appeal to sell Products, Daniels fund Ethics Initiatives, University of New Mexico, <http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu>, viewed 21 April 2014.

Note: This assignment is submitted by BaoChen Chen (Jack Chen) to University of Adelaide. If you want to use any idea from this report, please cite it correctly. © 2014 - 2018 Baochen Chen (Jack Chen) All Rights Reserved. 

The Media Audit for Uncle Tobby, University Assignment for IMC

Introduction This repot, Media Audit Report for Uncle Tobys, will discuss the background and external environment of our brand Uncle Tobys. Besides, we will target mainly explore and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of most heavily advertised three media, TV advertisement, sponsorship and Facebook, which conducted by Uncle Tobys in Adelaide. Further, the related recommendations of specific media will be presented at the end of our report. Background Uncle Tobys is a historical company, which was established in Melbourne in 1861 and used to be owned by Australian. It always focus on health food, has products varies from snacks, cereal and other successful new products launched. In 2006, Uncle Toby’s brand was acquired by Swiss food Giant Nestlé as well as the associate brands in New Zealand, for AUS$890 (Just-food. com, 2006). Marketing Objective  If we see some of Uncle Toby’s ads, like sponsorship of Royal Lifesaving Society’s Big Splash Swimathon or the television ads for plus cereal products (one bowl each day makes you healthier). We can see their ads have 1 similarity, which is promoting healthy lifestyle for their customers. To achieve the positioning, certain strategy must be used when creating the ads. For Uncle Toby’s brand the strategy we think that they used is brand image strategy. According to Keller, brand image has strong influence on consumer attitude, either positively or negatively (Keller 2001, 184.) and in Uncle Toby’s case they try to create “healthy” brand image.  We can see brand image strategy that Uncle Toby’s use from their ads characteristics such as, using athlete as their brand ambassador, the claims for their product (low fat, high fiber, low sugar, plus antioxidant etc.) and their new positioning line “edge for life”, or sponsorship for sport events. They want to create their product image with healthy people, sportsman, athlete and anything that say “Healthy”.  The brand image strategy, in our opinion is really fitting their objectives for brand positioning. Lastly, is seems Uncle Toby’s brand is getting pretty serious with their marketing, because their marketing budget always add up from year to year. 1.     Using mass media campaign to increase brand awareness and recognition 2.     Increase sales （profitability） and market share 3.     The level of exposure (reach more audience), frequency (continuous schedule) Target Customers Uncle Tobys has a variety of different healthy products that target to certain customers by using specific media, such a TV advertisement, sponsorship and social website, however, under our consideration, our target customers will be ‘Food is Medicine’ consumers. As we can see from the emphasized concept in the media, Uncle Tobys is trying to build a strong brand image on healthy food, which target to the customers who treat food and natural products as a valuable recourse which is alternative medicine (Esse & Memon, 2013, p.1). ‘Food is Medicine’ consumers think eating the healthy food is the fundamentals for physical health and decreasing the use of medications. This group of consumers are from all the age groups, but particularly to be mid-lifers: 56% of the consumers are between 30-70 years old, particularly female shoppers account for 50% of these group (Gilbert, 2000). Gilbert believes ‘Food is Medicine’ consumers generally are more confident on their attitudes and expectations. For instance, 78% of this consumer group prefer or normally at least give a glimpse of the labels when do purchasing to confirm what they are purchasing are rich in nutrition. Uncle Tobys’s products give a clear label that shows how sufficient fiber, sodium, and certain amount of sugar as a great nutrient mix they can provide to their customers compared with the other brands (Uncle Tobys, 2013). Further, this group of consumers is highly information oriented. They normally have a great sense of choosing healthy food with their educated background though massive media. In this way, their short-term health situation could be well organized. From this point of view, Uncle Tobys offers proper amount of nutritious food information they have produced on their social website, sponsorships TV advertisement to tell customers their proficient skills on making healthy food. Roy Morgan Research also reveals that Uncle Muesli products are the one of most popular brands in Australia across different ages, and young families with health consciousness will be the main targets. All in all, Uncle Tobys’s target consumers are those ‘Food is Medicine’ consumers who are well-educated, information-oriented and have good healthy lifestyle female customers. Mess Media  1. TV Advertising In 2014, there are two advertising campaigns that have been launched and running on TV, and they are Uncle Tobys Muesli Bar “made in the great out  doors” and Plus Calcium Cereal “day by day, bowl by bowl” respectively.                                                                                                                                   Figure 1:  Uncle Tobys in TV advertisement Video resources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uoyjo4dSdI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkCGyX0Kyzw&list=UUD5SLNpseSC42mAianx9ffQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyJvlmgSXsw&list=UUD5SLNpseSC42mAianx9ffQ Strengths Firstly, TVC highly reach to wide audiences and it is beyond the limitation of age, gender, season, geographic locations, income level levels, social status and so forth. Duration of these ads is 30 seconds or 15 seconds, which is more effective to prevent the ads from the clutter problem with a intrusion value. In addition, they are running on Free-to- air and Pay TV in different time-slots to reach more audiences. Secondly, it is a visual and emotional appeal for the products to audiences. And it is a great way to demonstrate the products through sounds mixing, visual effects and performance of actors. In Uncle Toby’s TVC, they are using kids and an athletic woman to demonstrate their products. They grabbed audiences’ attention by the warm tableaus between families, health concepts and sweet music and scenes, etc. Thirdly, it is an effective strategy to impact consumer buying behavior. Products are showed on TV regularly and repeatedly will instill and enhance the awareness and image of Uncle Toby. Weaknesses Firstly, TVC is the most costly advertising type comparing with other types of ads because it requires a major investment in human and material resources and need to pay a huge amount of money for airtime, especially in the prime time. Secondly, we cannot avoid the zipping and zapping problem, which will lose audiences and effectiveness of TVC. 2. Sponsorships Sponsorships are an important aspect of marketing communications for organizations. It is a type of advertising where a company invests money in specific events for promotional purposes. For Uncle Toby’s, it has been a major supporter of Australian Olympic team from 1988 to 2008. And also Uncle Toby’s has sponsored individual swimmers such as Kieren Perkins.                                                                               Figure 2: Uncle Tobys joins Australian Olympic Team                   (Australian Olympic Committee)                       Strengths Firstly, sponsorships help company to increase brand awareness, because the wide exposure events provide sponsor with many publicity opportunities in both electronic and print media.  Secondly, it also shapes customer-buying attitudes, and heighten sales volume. For example, by sponsoring those types of sport events, Uncle Toby’s encouraged Australians into sport for good health, which generate a positive influence of their products in consumers’ mind. The successful event sponsorships require a significant fit between the brand, the event and the target market. For Uncle Toby’s, the sport events are perfect fit for a target audience of active consumers, because more and more people are paying attention to their health, especially the person who love sports. Thirdly, sponsorships assist company in creating positive view from publics. People always perceive sponsorship in a positive way, and they may think Uncle Toby’s as making a greater effort to support the event.  Fourthly, sponsorship can be used to help retailers, wholesalers and other mediator in the distribution channel, such as in store display. Weaknesses Firstly, it is difficult to measure effectiveness. The returns company is getting from the sponsorship cannot realize quick and exact measurement. Secondly, Uncle Toby’s have to choose sponsorships with care, because competitors may has previously sponsored for same events, so a part of customers may falsely identified which company as a sponsor. 3. Facebook Social media is digital platforms that facilitate people sharing information, image and videos (William, p178). Uncle Toby has its own Facebook homepage to engage and commutate with audiences.                                                                                              Figure 3: Uncle Tobys on Facebook                                                                                       (Uncle Tobys 2014) Strengths Firstly, Facebook provides a public platform that allows everyone to access and build a page to share his or her interests with others. Uncle Tobys has an official homepage with 161511 followers. They can receive all the updates from Uncle Tobys as well as comment anything that they want. Through Facebook, Uncle Toby shares products images, videos, promotions and their health concepts to interact with audience. Meanwhile, Facebook provide opportunities to marketers to analyze market trends and consumers’ behavior and attitudes from the comments of audience or daily page views. In addition, from the negative or positive comments, marketers can learn what they need to improve that will help them to perfect marketing strategies. Secondly, Facebook is a low-cost media strategy compare with regular TVC, newspaper and other media. Weaknesses Because Facebook is an open platform, we cannot avoid negative and aggressive comments from users. These comments may cause misunderstanding of people and their offensiveness may push your audience away, which will impact brand image and reduce effectiveness of marketing strategy. Conclusion and Recommendation So far, Uncle Toys has put a lot of efforts on promoting its products. TVC, sponsorships and Facebook are effective tools to communicate and persuade audience to believe their products are good. However, all of them have different weaknesses. Because of cereals are normal products and the whole market is full with so many competitors, marketers should think more creative ads and seek new pointcut to capture audience’s attention. In addition, company can create more customised events such as creative products packaging design competitions; or, company can use mobile apps and put some small games to attract people to try. Moreover, Uncle Tobys’s Facebook is not very interesting and attractive. If they can put more message, images or video about healthy lifestyle, fashion or popular topics nowadays, which will make Facebook become more effective to connect to audience. Reference Australian Olympic Committee, 2007, Uncle Tobys joins Australian Olympic Team, Australian Olympic Committee, viewed 26 March 2014, <http://corporate.olympics.com.au/A84C31FE-5056-B031-6A62CAECFB4BA2CD>. Chitty, W, Baker, N, Valos, M & Shimp, T A, 2012, Integrated Marketing Communications, 3rd Asian Pacific ed, Cengage Learning, South, Melbourne, Vic. Essa, M M & Memon, M A, 2013, Food As Medicine, 2013ed, Nova Science Publisher, NY. Gilbert L, 2000, ‘Marketing functional foods: How To reach your target audience’, The Journal of Agrobiotechnology Management & Economics, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 20-38, viewed 29 March 2014, <http://www.agbioforum.org/v3n1/v3n1a05-gilbert.htm>. Just-food.com 2006, AUSTRALIA: Nestle to acquire Uncle Tobys, Just-food.com, viewed 20 March 2014, <http://www.just-food.com/news/nestlé-to-acquire-uncle-tobys_id94935.aspx>. MUmBRELLA 2014, Uncle Tobys Muesli Bars Reveal Campaign Featuring Sweeping Shots of Victorian Oat Farms, mUmBRELLA, viewed 28 March 2014, <http://mumbrella.com.au/uncle-tobys-muesli-bars-reveal-campaign-featuring-sweeping-shots-victorian-oat-farms-202061>. Roy Morgan Research, Snack Attack: Uncle Tobys Muesli Bars Favoured by Peckish Aussies, Roy Morgan Research, viewed 28 March 2014, <http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5325-snack-attack-uncle-tobys-muesli-bars-favoured-201312032231>. Uncle Tobys, 2014, Uncle Tobys on Facebook, Uncle Tobys Facebook, viewed 24 March 2014, <https://www.facebook.com/uncletobys> Uncle Tobys, A Natural Superfood, Uncle Tobys.com, viewed 23 March 2014, <http://www.uncletobys.com.au/oats/the-benefits-of-oats/a-natural-superfood/>. Note: This assignment is submitted by BaoChen Chen (Jack Chen), Yan Zhang & Xinnan Zhao. If you want to use any idea from this report, please cite it correctly. © 2014 - 2018 Baochen Chen (Jack Chen) All Rights Reserved.