Kmart launches multicultural doll brands

updated 12:09 p.m. ET Aug. 13, 2007

CHICAGO - Toy store aisles are getting a multicultural makeover.

Bolstered by the success of Nickelodeon’s popular bilingual children’s character, Dora the Explorer, and the spending power of the nation’s growing minority population, toy retailers across the country are filling their shelves with dolls whose skin colors and facial features reflect the girls and boys who play with them.

Although black and Hispanic dolls have been around for decades, the newer incarnations try harder at authenticity, rather than simply tinting the hair and skin from “white” doll molds.

Now, discount retailer Kmart hopes to cash in on a growing appetite for ethnic toys among minority consumers, and their rising spending power. It’s launching its own initiative this month, putting dozens of multicultural dolls on shelves in each of its 1,400 stores.

Although other retailers are stocking more multicultural dolls — often in predominantly minority neighborhoods — Kmart claims it’s the first mass-market retailer to have such a wide selection available in every store.

When the rollout is completed next week, Kmart stores will sell nearly four dozen types of ethnic dolls — a nearly fourfold increase from what’s currently available. The dolls are flanked by an advertising campaign in the store’s circulars and designed to appeal to black, Hispanic and Asian parents.

“We needed to be relevant to them,” said Philipp Elliott, a toy merchandise manager at Kmart, a subsidiary of Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp.

Becoming relevant to minority shoppers can reap big benefits. About one in three Americans is a minority, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Between 2006 and 2011, the spending power of the country’s blacks, Asians, Native Americans and multiracial shoppers is expected to grow 38 percent, to $1.9 trillion. Meanwhile Hispanic buying power alone is projected to grow a formidable 48 percent, to almost $1.2 trillion, according to data from The University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.

By 2050, minorities will account for half of U.S. residents, according to Census Bureau projections.

Kmart executives hope the doll campaign will bring renewed foot traffic to their stores, which saw sales revenue fall 2.3 percent last year. Last month, Sears warned second-quarter earnings will likely fall well below expectations because of more disappointing sales at Kmart and its sister Sears stores.

Kmart officials declined to release figures showing how much the chain has invested in the doll project, which includes brands such as Baby Abuelita and Mattel Inc.’s Rebelde dolls, as well as the newly designed proprietary Just Girlz collection.

But the retailer likely faces an uphill battle as it tries to woo shoppers away from heavyweight competitors Wal-Mart and Toys R’ Us, whose large selections of the popular Barbie and Bratz dolls give them an even bigger advantage in appealing to minority shoppers.

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