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Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - North America

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Barbie v. Bratz - Differences in Lifestyle

December 17, 2006

Reading the Sunday paper (San Francisco Chronicle) this morning, I came across a great article by Reyhan Harmanci about the increased interest in Bratz dolls v. the traditional Barbie (see LeeAnn Prescott's post here comparing searches in the top dolls this holiday season).

I decided to see if I could detect a difference in interest in the two dolls based on our Hitwise Lifestyle tool, which is based on the Claritias Prizm NE segmentation. The chart below shows the swing of visits to two sites, the official Barbie site (barbie.everythinggirl.com) represented above the line and Bratz (www.bratz.com) represented below.

Lifestyle Swing Barbie.com v. Bratz.com
barbie bratz.png

Interest in the two dolls demonstrates a division in socio-economic classes.

The groupings are based on urbanicity, with U's representing urban visits, S = suberban, C= small city T = towns and rural areas. The numbers are a measure of affluence from 1 (most affluent) to 4 (least affluent). The comparison shows us that Barbie is popular in affluent segments and Bratz with less affluents. This difference is most pronounced in urban and small city groups, less so in rural areas.

And how do the two toys compare in volume of searches?

barbie bratz week.png

Posted by Bill Tancer at 06:03 PM | (3) | (0)
In Categories Shopping and Classifieds

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Comments

Your analysis makes sense and also resonates with mentions of Barbie and Bratz dolls in the blogosphere (going under the assumption that the active-bloggers segment is still more affluent.

See here: http://www.blogpulse.com/trend?query1=barbie+AND+doll&label1=&query2=bratz+AND+doll&label2=&query3=&label3=&days=180&x=28&y=9

Posted by Max Kalehoff | December 18, 2006 11:36 AM

I think it would be really fun to add American Girl Dolls to the mix. My offhand guess would be that the wealthiest suburbanites prefer American Girl Dolls to either Barbie or Bratz.

Posted by hutsonstilts | December 27, 2006 06:37 PM

Your analysis makes sense and also resonates with mentions of Barbie and Bratz dolls in the blogosphere (going under the assumption that the active-bloggers segment is still more affluent.

I think it would be really fun to add American Girl Dolls to the mix. My offhand guess would be that the wealthiest suburbanites prefer American Girl Dolls to either Barbie or Bratz.
megan

Posted by megan | February 23, 2007 11:12 PM

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Bill Tancer

General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise.

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