regulatory agencies
As it issued one recall after another, Mattel sought to reassure its customers. The com- pany told the public that it was aggressively working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the United States and other regulatory agencies worldwide that governed consumer product safety. It provided a comprehensive list of all recalled products on its Web site and a toll-free number to respond to consumer questions regarding the safety of its products. The company also placed full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today. It also issued many press releases, including one that said, “Mattel has rigorous procedures, and we will continue to be vigilant and unforgiving in enforcing quality and safety. We don’t want to have recalls, but we don’t hesitate to take quick and effective action to correct issues as soon as we’ve identified them to ensure the safety of our products and the safety of children.”
Mattel instructed customers who had purchased the recalled products to take them away from their children, and it provided them with a prepaid mailing label to return affected toys for a refund or safe replacement product. Although Mattel did not reveal how many toys were actually returned, past recalls of inexpensive toys had yielded return rates below 5 percent, according to product safety experts. The company indicated that it would safely dispose of the returned products and recycle some materials into other products, such as park benches.
What Had Gone Wrong?
In its investigation, Mattel learned that some of its external vendors and their subcon- tractors were cutting corners to save money and time. Lead paint was at least 30 per- cent cheaper than unleaded paint, and some thought that it produced a richer color and was easier to apply. Mattel discovered, for example, that the main supplier of the Cars product, the focus of the second recall, was a Chinese contractor called Early Light Industrial. This firm had subcontracted the painting of the toy to another company, Hong Li Da. Although the subcontractor was supposed to use paint provided by Early Light Industrial (which had had been inspected and approved for use in toys exported to the United States), instead it substituted lead paint. “Early Light, the vendor, is every [bit as] much the victim as Mattel is,” Eckert later commented. “The subcontractor chose to violate the rules.”4 In another instance, Lee Der Industrial, a contractor, had used paint supplied by another firm and had apparently failed to test it for lead. In total, Mattel’s investigation uncovered seven contractors that had been involved in making the lead paint–coated products.
In its investigation of the problem with the small magnets, Mattel found that the problem lay in the toys’ design, not their production. While the company routinely put its products through rigorous stress tests, it did not anticipate that if two or more high-powered magnets were ingested at once they could close off the intestines if they became attached inside a young child. Once it discovered this possibility, Mattel changed the design of the toy; in the newer versions the magnets were locked into the products so that a child could not break them free and accidentally ingest them. (The Consumers Union reported that one toddler had died and 12 children had been injured as a result of swallowing magnets, but did not say if Mattel toys, in particular, had caused these injuries.)
