madkat_kelsey

As some of you might now, I've applied to my college's art school in the hopes of becoming a visual communications major with a minor in marketing at the business school. I love designing things, coming up with ideas, imagining up products, etc and I would love to do these things for Disney/Pixar one day. I plan to get this dream going by doing both the Disney College Program, and Disney's Professional Internship program later on and working my way up as others have done before me.

That said, I've been thinking lately about the way companies like Disney market toys and other products for children, especially now that it's the holiday season. I'm always annoyed when I see bright pink things with the Disney Princesses slapped on them right next to a similar blue display covered with Pixar characters. This completely ignores the fact that many boys enjoy the Princess movies too (although, unfortunately, they tend to keep it a secret from their friends), and that plenty of girls love Toy Story and other Pixar movies. I thought of all this again as I was flipping through a Toys R Us catalog, and of course, bright pink pages were filled with girls playing house, dressing up dolls, and pretending to cook or clean while the boys got action figures, swords, hero role play, and science kits. Then I had an idea:

What if instead of organizing these catalogs by sex, they were organized by type of toy, movie, and franchise? And what if they included girls AND boys playing with toys for each? I thought of a hypothetical Disney catalog and in my head it went something like this...

Pixar Page
For Toy story, a young boy and girl are dressed in space-ranger suits doing battle with toy laser beams and sci-fi blasters. A girl dressed in a Jessie costume swings a lasso and cheers while some other kids play with the lego sets. The Toy Story Collection figures are shown alone with their prices. For Cars, a boy and girl race their toy cars on the floor together under images of the toys and their prices. Same trend for Up, Wall-e, etc.

Princesses
A boy wears a Beast costume, the one with the blue suit and another boy wears an alternate one that's more ferocious. These are in addition to a couple girls playing with the dresses, etc (I'd love for there to be pictures of the boys and the dresses too, but sadly I can't see that being approved by marketing just yet...yet). Similar trends continue with the other films, like Naveen realted toys and costumes,or Flynn Ryder and Aladdin action hero toys (where girls are seen playing with these too in addition to the dolls and whatnot).

There could be other sections for The Classics like Snow White and Bambi, a page in the front with toys promoting whatever new movie is being released or was a hit that year, etc. And for other companies like Toys R Us, instead of making house-toys specifically for girls, make them gender neutral. If you want to have a toy vacuum, make it look like a mini Dirt Devil or Dyson instead of making it pink or any other gender-specific color and show a boy and a girl having fun with it. Make a fake lawnmower and show a girl pushing it instead of a boy. Make a cooking set with a cute picture of a girl and boy wearing chef's hats looking oh so proud of their mini pancakes and cookies. If you must, show a boy looking awesome at his toy BBQ grill, just don't keep pushing the myth that cooking and cleaning are for women. I see my dad doing housework ALL THE TIME! The same goes for the science kits, spy toys, and action adventure role play props.

These are just some of the ideas that came to me. In my head I can see the whole catalog, and I really really want it to be a reality. If I do get to work with Disney some day, I am totally proposing something like this.
If you want to read more about gender and marketing to kids,