PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Hasbro says it will begin selling gender-neutral Easy-Bake ovens after meeting with a 13-year-old New Jersey girl who had campaigned for them.
McKenna Pope, of Garfield, N.J., got more than 40,000 signatures on her online petition at Change.org. She also got the support of celebrity chefs, including Bobby Flay, who backed her call for Hasbro (HAS) to include boys in Easy-Bake oven ads and make them in gender-neutral colors.
She began her campaign after finding only pink or purple Easy-Bake ovens. She wanted to buy ovens in other colors as a Christmas gift for her four-year-old brother, Gavyn Boscio.
Hasbro invited McKenna and her family to a meeting at its Pawtucket, R.I., headquarters. During the meeting, Monday, Hasbro executives revealed a prototype of their newest Easy-Bake in black, silver or blue.
Hasbro has been working on the new color scheme and design for about 18 months and decided to show McKenna to see whether she had any thoughts, said John Frascotti, Hasbro's chief marketing officer.
McKenna said Hasbro is doing everything she wanted, including featuring boys in ads for the toy.
"They really met most or even all of what I wanted them to do, and they really amazed me," she said, adding that her brother Gavyn thought the new design was "awesome."
Hasbro's Frascotti says the classic toy has had about a dozen different color schemes since its 1963 launch, from yellow to green to teal to silver. The most recent version, introduced in 2011, is mostly purple with pink accents.
He said solid sales since then prompted the company to consider updating it and broaden the consumer base by manufacturing it in different colors.
"It's actually a product that's played with by both boys and girls," Frascotti said. "We will continue to offer the existing (color scheme), too, because it's so popular."
Hasbro plans to unveil the color scheme at the industry's Toy Fair in New York in February. Frascotti said. And it'll be on store shelves next summer.
McKenna says the celebrity entertainment TV show "Inside Edition" gave the family an Easy-Bake oven after learning of her campaign. So McKenna plans to buy her brother some cake mixes for Christmas, she said.
Source
Joyous follow-up to this
McKenna Pope, of Garfield, N.J., got more than 40,000 signatures on her online petition at Change.org. She also got the support of celebrity chefs, including Bobby Flay, who backed her call for Hasbro (HAS) to include boys in Easy-Bake oven ads and make them in gender-neutral colors.
She began her campaign after finding only pink or purple Easy-Bake ovens. She wanted to buy ovens in other colors as a Christmas gift for her four-year-old brother, Gavyn Boscio.
Hasbro invited McKenna and her family to a meeting at its Pawtucket, R.I., headquarters. During the meeting, Monday, Hasbro executives revealed a prototype of their newest Easy-Bake in black, silver or blue.
Hasbro has been working on the new color scheme and design for about 18 months and decided to show McKenna to see whether she had any thoughts, said John Frascotti, Hasbro's chief marketing officer.
McKenna said Hasbro is doing everything she wanted, including featuring boys in ads for the toy.
"They really met most or even all of what I wanted them to do, and they really amazed me," she said, adding that her brother Gavyn thought the new design was "awesome."
Hasbro's Frascotti says the classic toy has had about a dozen different color schemes since its 1963 launch, from yellow to green to teal to silver. The most recent version, introduced in 2011, is mostly purple with pink accents.
He said solid sales since then prompted the company to consider updating it and broaden the consumer base by manufacturing it in different colors.
"It's actually a product that's played with by both boys and girls," Frascotti said. "We will continue to offer the existing (color scheme), too, because it's so popular."
Hasbro plans to unveil the color scheme at the industry's Toy Fair in New York in February. Frascotti said. And it'll be on store shelves next summer.
McKenna says the celebrity entertainment TV show "Inside Edition" gave the family an Easy-Bake oven after learning of her campaign. So McKenna plans to buy her brother some cake mixes for Christmas, she said.
Source
Joyous follow-up to this
Good on Hasbro for listening to her complaints. I am jealous of her brother.
In retrospect, this was one of my few not-usually-for-boys toys. I'm pretty sure I pitched a fit for want of a doll in the store at the age of 4. After that my mom allowed a few Littlest Petshop toys and the oven. Progress? :)
I've forgiven him now...mostly. ;)
Aww YASSSS!
I never had an Easy Bake Oven. I did have a jewelry maker though. You cut up pieces of plastic to make earrings and stuff.
If only other companies would pay heed and the toy aisles would stop being pretty much exclusively blue and pink.
:) :)
/nitpicking
Edited at 2012-12-18 12:24 pm (UTC)
Not that I necessarily mind blue - but 'gender neutral' often seems to mean 'boy stuff or traditionally masculine roles marketed toward girls.'
Edited at 2012-12-18 01:10 pm (UTC)
My nephew asked for one for his 5th birthday (he's 10 now); and my mom and I went halves on it (because the oven + mixes arent cheap). I remember having to explain to her why it didnt matter that a boy wanted a pink toy that baked treats, and that it was actually awesome that he wanted to cook 'yummy food' just like his daddy.
I'm a big believer that society needs to be changed so that we accept that some boys like pink and dresses,not changing things that are girly so that boys who like them "won't get made fun of".
Seems to me like making different colors just makes sense. Not everyone likes pink and purple (and that goes for both boys and girls).
Apparently, they have these dolls for little girls with cancer/going through chemotherapy/radiation. They're so sweet and I wanted to purchase one for someone, or at least keep it around just to have.
Thank you for mentioning this! I just Googled it and I'm dying from feels...!
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js
http://www.beautifulandbald.com/
There's some internet backlash about this ("Bratz is appropriating the suffering of children to make a buck"), but I really don't understand that. Was American Girls appropriating the suffering of girls in wheelchairs when they made a wheelchair accessory available for American Girl dolls? I think kids who are going through chemo would love dolls like this. I know I was obsessed with anything that "looked like me" when I was 6-8.