The organization I chose for this case study was Micro-Games America Entertainment (MGA Entertainment Inc.) Recently, MGA Entertainment had a crisis involving one of its children's toys. The toy that caused controversy was
MGA’s LOL. Surprise! dolls. In August, 2020, several parents noticed a very disturbing feature on their children’s LOL Surprise! Dolls. Several parents found that when the dolls were submerged into cold water, lingerie would appear on the dolls. I first learned about this incident through Tik Tok, but later learned more about it from an article by Nicole Darrah on The Sun. (Darrah, 2020).
The key issues of this crisis involved toys for young children (mainly young girls) displaying inappropriate clothing. First, there is no warning about this feature on the packaging of the dolls. Second, the dolls are considered very inappropriate for young girls to play with. Third, the parents were very unhappy with the company and the dolls because of how inappropriate they are. This crisis caused severe backlash for MGA from several unhappy parents. This crisis blew up on social media ranging from news stations to Tik Tok.
In this crisis, MGA Entertainment, young girls, and parents of young children were all involved. MGA Entertainment was involved because it was their doll that was causing the issue. MGA Entertainment manufactured and sold the LOL Surprise! Dolls that were inappropriate. The impressionable, young girls were involved because they were the ones playing with the inappropriate dolls and were the reason why the parents were involved. The parents were involved because they were worried and upset that their children were unknowingly playing with inappropriate dolls.
According to Darrah, the LOL Surprise dolls were created by MGA Entertainment in 2016 and won the Toy of the Year award for the past three years. (Darrah, 2020). Also according to Darrah, one mother actually posted to Reddit last year about the LOL Surprise doll wearing lingerie after being dipped into cold water. (Darrah, 2020). However, the issue did not increasingly become a crisis until recently in August of 2020. One woman made a video of her putting the dolls into ice water to test them. Her live video showed that a naked LOL Surprise doll does have lingerie appear. This one woman’s video led to several viral videos of other parents testing their children’s LOL Surprise dolls. The parents were outraged that the boxes had no warning and that they had unknowingly bought their children such an inappropriate doll. The viral videos were also being tagged with #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurChildren, which have also been used by conspiracy theorists who claim to expose evidence of global sex trafficking. (L.O.L. Surprise!, 2020). Several parents were outraged with the dolls and began a boycott on the sexaully inapproraite dolls.
The organization did not respond very quickly to the crisis, which greatly hurt how effective their response was. When the company finally responded, a spokesperson for MGA Entertainment was quoted as saying, “LOL Surprise! is a fashion-forward doll brand designed to be fun and expressive. We work very hard to be a brand that listens and adapts to our fans’ requests. We acknowledge the recent feedback received and thank you for bringing it to our attention. We have implemented comprehensive corrective measures to our design and approval process while ensuring the essence of the brand is kept intact.” (L.O.L. Surprise!, 2020). MGA Entertainment did not specify what changes were being made and did not provide much of an explanation as to why this happened. The company was not very transparent with the public on the issue. The company did not provide any details into why this happened, how it was being changed to prevent it from happening again, and no apology was really given for the incident.
Overall, I do not think that MGA Entertainment was very effective in their response to the crisis. The company’s response was very brief and very broad. There were no specifics mentioned. There was no mention of investigating the issue or why it happened. There was no apology to parents for the issue. They didn’t even really take responsibility for it. They mentioned that changes would be made, but did not say what changes would be made or when they would be made. The company was not very transparent with their response, and the response was very delayed. The company did not respond to the crisis or the parents’ outrage quickly.
The crisis caused the company to lose a large amount of business due to the boycott on the LOL Surprise dolls. The company’s lack of a timely response did not help the situation at all. The company’s reputation was tarnished by this event and is slowly being rebuilt. Several parents are still hesitant to allow their children to play with the LOL Surprise dolls. Even though the company claims to have made changes, no one really knows what the changes are. This does nothing to ease parents; uncertainty and hesitance to buy the toy.
Based off of MGA Entertainment’s response, this organization appeared to use the response strategy of reminding. According to the textbook, reminding is when the organization tells stakeholders about its past and how good it was. (Coombs, 2019). This type of response strategy adds positive information to the public about the organization. This response can, however, have unforeseen consequences. For example, the public can view a response like this to be an attempt to distract them from the crisis and redirect their attention. (Coombs, 2019). MGA Entertainment used this type of response when they mentioned how they “work hard to listen and adapt to the fans’ requests.” (L.O.L. Surprise!, 2020). The company played on their past reputation to distract from the fact they did not actually apologize and distract from the fact that they did not take much responsibility for this incident.
Works Cited:
Coombs, T. (2019). Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding.
SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
Darrah, N. (2020, August 13). Why do LOL Surprise dolls appear in lingerie after theyre dipped
in cold water? Retrieved from https://www.the-sun.com/news/1303717/lol-surprise-
dolls-cold-water-lingerie-appearance -controversy/
L.O.L. Surprise! doll maker finally responds to those viral ice-water videos -
Tribune Content Agency (August 15, 2020). (n.d.).
Retrieved from https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/l-o-l-surprise-doll-maker-
finally-responds-to-thos e-viral-ice-water-videos/
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