Mattel printed the wrong URL on the back of the boxes of toys for the new “Wicked” movie, which was not good, but just how bad was it?
Lady Sneerwell in Sheridan’s School for Scandal observes, “There’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.” Wit is about somebody else’s misfortune.
About a week ago, sharp-eyed shoppers and spreaders of social media malice noticed that the boxes for new, Mattel-created, Wicked-themed dolls for the forthcoming movie had a URL that directed buyers not to WickedMovie.com but instead, simply, to Wicked.com, which is a porn site specializing, per Variety, in parody videos of major Hollywood movies.
Whoops.
I laughed when I first read about this in Ad Age ($) because I have as much malice as the next guy. However, my memory then awakened to a painful early moment in my corporate career.
Back then, I was the digital editor at EarthLink, a mostly dial-up Internet Service Provider, and we were running a campaign to get our members to upgrade to high-speed DSL. One of the writers on my team rewrote the copy on a marketing email. In the process of doing this, the writer retyped the phone number members should call to order the new service… and accidentally switched the order of two digits.
A few days later we learned that we had sent something like a quarter million emails to customers directing them to call a phone sex line to order high-speed internet service from EarthLink.
That was a bad, bad day.
My boss asked me whose fault it was. I said, “It’s my fault.” “No, who was the writer?” “My team, my fault. If you’re going to fire anybody over this, it’s going to be me.” My boss grumbled but let it go. “How’d it happen?” my boss asked. “I aim to find out.”
Over the next few days, I learned that the in-house proofreader was not in the habit of dialing phone numbers and testing URLs for our campaigns and newsletters. It wasn’t laziness on the proofer’s part: nobody had thought to ask or make it part of the proofer’s job. I asked.
This was before Facebook, Twitter/X, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, etc. I was lucky because if social media had been around then a bunch of faux-outraged folks would have called for my head on a platter the way such people have condemned the poor, benighted, thankfully anonymous (so far) person at Mattel who made the URL oopsie.
For example:
I don’t know who @fallinformel is on X, but there is a logical flaw in that tweet. The Wicked movie dolls from Mattel cost between $24.99 and $39.99, which is pricey for most 3 to 12 year olds (the age range for Barbie-like dolls). It is not primarily kids buying these dolls: it’s their parents, and the odds of any parent going to the wrong URL are pretty low to begin with.
It’s also important to note where the incorrect URL is. It’s on the back of the box way down by the bar code:
It’s not like there’s a big banner on the top front of the box saying, “Hey kids! Come watch Elphaba get it on at www.wicked.com!”
Furthermore, why is Variety quoting and linking to an anonymous X poster calling for a Mattel employee to be fired as if @fallinformel is a legitimate source or anything other than a person with an opinion and internet access? That opinion isn’t even a strongly held or influential one. The account has 1,362 followers, and the top of the bio page reads: “if you take me serious that’s on you. fan account.”
Over at Ad Age, which also includes links to tweets as if they were gospel, a later article quotes a Babson professor of marketing who talks intelligently about how expensive it will be for Mattel to fix this problem, but then hares off into speculation that this kerfuffle might do long-term damage to Mattel’s ability to work with Hollywood studios: “I do wonder if other character franchises in the future will be a bit more skeptical to partner with Mattel.”
This is ridiculous. Not only has Mattel been making toys around big movies for decades, but also have we as a culture decided that there is no room for what is ultimately harmless human error?
Would it be bad if little Suzie decided to type www.wicked.com into her iPad? Sure. Is that the only moment when little Suzie is going to encounter a not-so-nice surprise online? Nope.
Anybody who goes to wicked.com, as I just did to test this theory (yeah, yeah, make all the jokes you want), will hit an “Access to beyond this page is restricted to adults *18+) only.” As security measures go, this is equivalent to walking away from your car with the keys in the ignition, the motor running, and a “please don’t steal my car” post it on the dashboard. But at least little Suzie will know that she’s going somewhere she shouldn’t. Plus, if she clicks “enter” then what she’ll find is still less salacious than a lot of what she’ll find on Instagram Reels.
I blame the 24 hour news cycle. This was an honest rather than a malicious mistake. They happen. Let’s move on.
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* Image Prompt: “The green-faced wicked witch of the west from the Oz stories with a horrified expression like Kevin from “Home Alone” and her hands close at either side of her face.”
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