Writing, Culture,
Research: Dolls
for Kaira.
Segmentation?
Identify a focus
background
research
reporting
Research plan
team analysis
Field entry &
sampling
field data
gathering tools
photo credit: Yung
Reflection Papers Thinking Like an International Marketer,
and Talking about Race and Ethnicity
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Getting Started
First Person Introduction: Storytelling
After settling into my dry hotel room for the night, I dug out the soggy rice
paper and envelope from my pants pocket. If I start researching the doll
venture now, I’ll have time to focus on it and my school work this semester.
Remembering the faded ink, I grabbed my laptop to check the blog
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Getting Started
Diving in from the literature make a creative start:
The doll category of children’s toys is flooded with plastic petite blonde models,
qualities that not all consumers may find most appealing. Parents have presented rave
reviews of American Girl because of “the realism of its characters” (Acosta-Alzuru &
Kreshel, 2002). Parent Peggy Megginson was quoted in the same article as saying “this
really fills a much needed niche for little girls.” If realism is what parents and children
(customers and consumers) are looking for in the new generations of dolls, then our
doll design might stand a chance.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Getting Started
The doll category of children’s toys is flooded with plastic petite blonde
models, qualities that not all consumers may find most appealing. Parents
have presented rave reviews of American Girl because of “the realism of its
characters” (Acosta-Alzuru & Kreshel, 2002). Parent Peggy Megginson
was quoted in the same article as saying “this really fills a much needed
niche for little girls.” If realism is what parents and children (customers
and consumers) are looking for in the new generations of dolls, then our
doll design might stand a chance.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Defining Your Target
Another interesting take would be to target beyond Asian American families, and
to discover if this product would be able to serve the needs of all American
families. “By the 1980s, commercialized children's culture in the U.S., Europe, and
on the prosperous Pacific Rim had become the norm…The playthings that
children desire and parents give have become part of a global system of
communication and distribution. The result is that Asian girls want blond Barbies
and American boys want Japanese Power Rangers” (Cross & Smits 2005).The
world we live in today is so interconnected that all it takes is for a toy to be liked
and desired for it to have success. An Asian doll may be a huge hit with Caucasian
American girls, and vice versa.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Defining Your Target
Who Buys Multi-racial Toys?
To discover parents’ race preferences for their children’s dolls, it is important to conduct
surveys, ethnographic experiments and interviews. This data should be collected from
parents with non-Caucasian children. . . Ethnographic studies should be conducted in
homes of non-Caucasian children to see how they are playing with their current dolls. Next,
a doll should be introduced to the children whose race matches that of the child being
studied.
[we need to talk about race, a little bit, and about who set up this problem to begin with: it
was your own sister. If uncles and aunts buy toys for nieces and nephews, then should they
how to include them in your sample?]
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Defining Your Target (and your goals)
Chin, Elizabeth. Ethnically Correct Dolls: Toying with the Race Industry. American
Anthropologist June, 1999 Vol.101(2):305-321. Hat tip to Valari for finding it!
In “Ethnically Correct Dolls: Toying with the Race Industry,” Elizabeth Chin investigates the
claim that ethnically correct toys enhance minority children’s’ self-esteem. She contrasts a case
study of Mattel’s Shani doll [Mattel’s African American Barbie] with data from her fieldwork in
an African American working-class neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. From her work
with the children of New Haven, Chin ascertains that racially diverse dolls do little to meet
their stated objective and rather fix color boundaries more firmly in place. She asserts that the
children’s’ actions of braiding their white dolls’ hair and otherwise complicating the dolls’
racial identities hold the most potential for subverting racial categories and allowing the
children’s self-esteem to blossom.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Doing the Research & Finding Implications
Will a survey define your target, or do you define it, first?
One initial thought of how to achieve this information is to conduct a survey. This
would most likely be done online, because of the mass-market reach, and it has a
lower cost than a traditional paper survey. With the information that is gained from
the survey, one would be able to tell if the doll would be a success in the market.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Doing the Research & Finding Implications
Finding a Method from a Similar Case (that is, a “special” market and product)
Qualitative Case Studies→ An analysis should be done looking at business situations
similar to the one at hand benchmarking any key strategies necessary in appealing to a
specific niche market. For example, Autism Treasure Chest is a toy distributor
specifically designed for a unique market. Case studies will allow for comparisons to be
made regarding common hurdles that need to be overcome and universal issues that
deal with markets with important unmet needs.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Doing the Research & Finding Implications
Chicken or Egg? Which Comes First?
According to Poynter and Henning one the
most popular types of market research
today are mobile surveys (2014). I believe
this would be a good technique for us to get
basic feedback about our idea. After we get
the results from the survey the next step
would be ethnographic research.
Are you testing or are you
learning? Which mode are
you in? If you know the
variables and the questions,
go ahead and test. If not,
do something inductive.
What would that be?
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Solving Problems: Communicating
For online sales my recommendation would be to partner with websites
tailored towards Asian children. Asiasociety.org has a list of “Cool
Websites for Kids.” I recommend we go down that list and contact the
sites about advertising and partnerships. That way we can find Asian
children and get them excited about the toys.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Solving Problems: Communicating
“Language is only a barrier if you allow it to be. “
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Solving Problems: Competition
Next comes the competition aspect of it. Are there any competitors out
there that I am not aware of yet, and if my product becomes successful who
will try to join the market and take some of my market share away?
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Solving Problems: Tricks for Higher Marks
When 13 papers cite the same idea and same author, and add nothing new, I begin to
suspect that they are only drawing on some reading from another class and have done no
new research. Am I guessing correctly? Nothing wrong with leveraging an old paper, but
add something new!
There were large amounts of lead found in toys that were being sold all
across the world. Hari Bapuji and Paul Beamish conducted research on this
topic and found that 95% of Mattel’s toys being recalled were coming from
China and that the total number of recalls has increased greatly over the last
ten years (Bapuji & Beamish, 2007).
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Solving Problems: Tricks for Higher Marks
Buttering Up the Professor
. . . after a semester in Professor Erickson’s class, I know that guangxi is
one of the most important aspects to forming a business relationship
over in China.
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
Internal clients,
company needs
identify the focus.
Create a
trustworthy story
Identify a focus
reporting
Research plan
Theory &
Analysis
Engage your
team analysis
internal client in the
analysis; get confirmation
from participants if you can.
● triangulate
● find themes/patterns
● “flip the script”
● verify with re-visits
Field entry &
sampling
field data
gathering tools
For exploratory research,
the question is “what’s
going on” with whatever
it is you want to learn
about (your new or
revised product, your
new market, your new
retail setting, etc).
Field entry: where will you
go and how will you get
“in” there.
Sampling: what people?
what contexts?
Where will I go to see
this product purchased,
used, and talked about?
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson
谢谢！
ibus 402 2015 • Erickson