Business Lessons I Learned from Barbie

By Anita Windisman

Successful. Beautiful. Powerful. A role model for every successful modern woman, Barbie loves her work and dares to dream big. She can do anything, and shows that with passion and determination, you can do anything too. Since 1959, when she was introduced by Mattel, Barbie has been a market leader, innovative and in tune with the times. This book offers seven business lessons from Barbie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anita Windisman
• Release date: Apr 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781897471746

Anita Windisman

Anita Windisman is the founder and President of One of a Kind Marketing where the philosophy is reaching and engaging with customers one at a time. The company provides strategic marketing/branding consulting and social media training – specializing in LinkedIn - for business professionals, sales teams and those in business development roles.Anita has over 18 years of experience in sales and marketing, with the last 15 focused in the online sector. She was the former Director of Marketing & Communications – Canada for the former Quebecor World and has worked with companies such as Toronto Hydro Energy Services and Royal LePage and with such brands as Levi Strauss Canada and The Home Depot Canada.Anita holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, regularly speaks at conference and events, writes for trade magazines.

Book preview

Introduction

My first memories of Barbie

I first saw Barbie in a television commercial when I was four years old, and asked Santa to bring me one for Christmas. While I’d like to think that Santa brought me the doll, it was really my mother, Mary Windisman, who bought me my very first Barbie.

I remember playing Barbie on the front porch of our neighbour’s house. I affectionately called my playmate Sue Suzanna Banana and she in turn teasingly called me Anita Chiquita. Other fond memories include playing with my brother’s G.I. Joe action figures, although they were not nearly as much fun because G.I. Joe was much taller than Barbie and didn’t have nice clothing or any of the neat accessories that Barbie did.

I loved Barbie as a child and I am still fascinated with her as a grownup — all these years later.

Resurrecting my memories of Barbie

Barbie returned to my life two years ago when my parents sold the family home that my brothers and I had grown up in. Before the move to their new condo, we helped to clear out a treasure trove of toys, papers, and other memorabilia stashed away in their attic.

I was thrilled to see that my mother had saved my Barbies in the white case I’d always kept them in. I opened the case, expecting to see my dolls in their gorgeous clothes, just as I remembered them. I was absolutely shocked to see two ratty-looking Barbie dolls with a bunch of clothes jammed inside. Even more horrifying, I found two Barbie heads in one of the drawers. Yes, heads! Gee, just what kind of little girl was I?

The inspiration for my business

That got me thinking about Barbie and the influence she has had on my life. Yes, it was through her that I learned social skills — how to be nice and play well with others, but were there more important lessons I had learned from her? Was I learning while I was playing? Did everyone love Barbie as I did?

I think the aha moment came for me in 1998 when I purchased a very special Barbie from the Mattel website. Remember that it was only in 1995, in the early days of the commercial internet, that Amazon.com first launched online. Dial-up internet access was the norm, and eCommerce was in its infancy. Still, on the Mattel website, I was able to create my very own personalized Barbie doll by choosing her hair colour and style, eye colour, skin colour, and outfit. I named her The Anita Barbie. How amazing, I thought — and that’s what got me hooked on the subject of mass customization.

Some years later, in October 2006, I wrote Why Barbie is the inspiration for this blog and posted it on my blog Flexistuff.com, where I focus on the topics of mass customization, personalization, and one-to-one marketing. This in turn led me to start One of a Kind Publishing Inc., a company that personalizes content in the form of books, eBooks, and marketing material.

What else did I learn from Barbie?

Since the inspiration for me came from the most unlikely of sources — a petite plastic doll — it also got me thinking about what other