All dolled up

Music industry still shifting plenty of plastic

What?: Country starlet Taylor Swift is to be immortalised as a plastic toy. The JAKKS toy company plans to launch a line of fashion dolls and role-play toys (including Swift’s signature crystal guitar).

Plastic effigies of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana hit UK shelves this month, jostling for shelf space beside Barbie, Bratz and the ever-popular HSM spin-off doll range.

Barbie looks nervous, and Ken is off to the gym to bulk up, as Motörhead’s Lemmy gets his own action figure. “It’s the best-looking ugly man you’ll ever see, “ barked Lemmy.

Gwen Stefani has created dolls of herself and her backing singers – Love, Angel, Music and Baby – and turned them into perfume bottles in conjunction with Coty fragrances.

So what?: Celebrity dolls clearly help the net sales of companies like JAKKS ($284.1M in 2007), but the demand for plastic is on the wane. The humble CD has been ousted by digital and plastic itself has never had a good environmental reputation, with recent Hanna Montana and Barbie toys falling foul of lead content issues. When kids are spending most of their time online, “you’re not spending four hours on Barbie dolls,” said Gerrick Johnson, a toy industry analyst. ‘Reality’ toys are giving way to virtual.

“Heavily-discounted Sugababes dolls (spotted on the shelves of a major supermarket) highlight how the music industry and toy manufacturers are suffering from the ‘demise of plastic’ as Tweens demand greater content and usability.”
Giles Fitzgerald, Deputy Editor, Five Eight

http://taylorswift.com