Toying with Product Recalls
You gotta figure that Mattel’s Chief Executive, Robert Eckert, isn’t having much fun these days.
In a little over a month, the world’s largest toy maker has announced three major recalls due to concerns about excessive lead paint in Chinese-made toys the company sold. Now comes word that Eckert is expected to testify in House and Senate hearings this week and next, centering on how adroit the company was in alerting federal regulators about major toy recalls.
As a concerned parent of a going-on-three-year-old, I’ve been tracking the story pretty closely. After all, I was the one to anxiously check my son’s ever-growing collection of Thomas trains a few weeks ago for the telltale numbers signifying whether James, Percy and the others might be headed for that great railyard in the sky. (Well, in the mail to toymaker RC2, at any rate.)
However, Thomas and the Very Big Recall was, if you’ll pardon the expression, child’s play compared with the still-to-come Mattel move.
With the latest recall of Sept. 4, the toymaker has recalled some 21 million toys worldwide.
I’ve been impressed with Mattel’s handling of this Brobdingnagian nightmare. Eckert has been pretty upfront about what went wrong, starting off his Aug. 15 “Today Show” interview by apologizing to parents everywhere. The homepage of the company’s website manitains that it has “strengthened our testing worldwide with a mandatory 3-stage safety check of paint used on our toys,” declaring that “All paint must be tested before it is used on our toys. No exceptions”; “We have significantly increased testing and unannounced inspections at every stage of production”; and “We are testing every production run of finished toys to ensure compliance before they reach you.” The page was reproduced in a full-page New York Times ad last Wednesday.
Still, between the facts that the issue concerns children’s safety and that we’re smack in the middle of an election cycle, Eckert can undoubtedly expect some pretty tough questions on Capitol Hill. His shareholders would probably like a word as well; since the first recall, Mattel’s shares have fallen by over 9 percent, and the holidays aren’t all that far away.
As a lifetime customer, I think Eckert and Mattel have handled the situation about as well as they could. What do you think?
