More Kids' Marketers Pitch

Number of Single-Sex Products

By LISA BANNON

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Ann Hendrix-Jenkins got an unexpected lesson in marketing when she

went to Toys "R" Us to buy a toy train for her three-year-old daughter,

Isabel. The recently renovated store, in Langley Park, Md., had just built

two new toy sections, but there weren't any trains in the one designated for

Isabel.

Called "Girl's World" on a printed store directory, the area did have plenty

of dolls, kitchen toys and makeup stocked on its magenta shelves. But the

trains were over in the red section, designated "Boy's World" on the

directory, alongside action figures, Tonka trucks and walkie-talkies.

Ms. Hendrix-Jenkins, a 34-year-old working mother, says she felt as if

she'd been transported back to the 1960s. "I was shocked that Toys 'R'

Us would take such a giant step backward," she says. She doesn't want

her daughter to be taught to believe that trains, airplanes and fire trucks are

strictly the purview of boys, she adds.

Toys "R" Us's new store design -- the result of interviews with 10,000

current and former customers, the retailer says -- is a remarkably direct

example of a tactic now back in vogue among companies marketing toys,

software and other products to kids: targeting based on gender.

The practice isn't entirely new -- just look at G.I. Joe and Barbie. But after

two decades of adopting a "gender-neutral" tone and carefully avoiding

boy-girl stereotypes, many marketers have decided that it is once again

safe to emphasize gender differences in products and pitches aimed at

children. And this time, companies are starting with children as young as

two.

Aggressive gender selling went out of style

a quarter-century ago, because companies

expected parents raised in the liberated

'60s and '70s to resist products that

reinforce traditional gender roles. Now

buying patterns are proving those

expectations wrong, and many companies

feel freer to acknowledge male-female

differences.

Fox Family Channels, a joint venture

between News Corp. and Saban

Entertainment Inc., makes no apologies for using gender-based marketing.

The unit is about to start up two new digital cable networks for boys and

girls, ages two to 14 -- unsubtly dubbed the boyzChannel and the

girlzChannel.

'Boys and Girls Are Different'

"We have come a long way from the '60s and '70s when everyone said

boys and girls are the same, their tastes are the same, their entertainment

should be the same," says Rich Cronin, Fox Family Channels' president

and chief executive. "Boys and girls are different, and it's great to celebrate

what's special about each."

Behind the shift is something marketers and child-development experts

have been noticing for a while now: Boys seem to be starting to act like

boys, and girls like girls, sooner than they used to. Boys start to be

fascinated with battle and competition, while girls become more interested

in creativity and relationships.

Separate Quarters

A directory for newly redesigned Toys "R" Us stores lists merchandise sold in

sections -- originally dubbed Boy's World and Girl's World. The retailer now says

labeling the new sections "Boy's World" and "Girl's World" was a mistake and is

removing the directories from stores.

Boy's World

Action figures

Sports collectibles

Radio remote-control cars

Tonka trucks

Boy's role play

Walkie-talkies

Girl's World

Barbie

Baby dolls

Doll houses

Collectible horses

Play kitchens

Housekeeping toys

Girl's dress-up

Jewelry

Cosmetics

Bath and body

The resulting behaviors -- what experts refer to as "male and female play

patterns" -- used to emerge around age five or six. But now they are often

observed in young preschoolers. Possible explanations, child-development

experts say, include earlier socialization with peers in day care and

preschool and earlier media exposure.

That would explain why software marketers are increasingly aiming at just

one gender. Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of France's Vivendi SA, is

appealing to boys with Starcraft, an outer-space combat game, while

Encore Software Inc. is selling Girls Only! Secret Diary & More, for

creating a "secret diary."

The gender-based appeals can lead companies into a public-relations mine

field. Earlier this year, Mattel Inc. made headlines with a pair of

gender-specific computers for children ages four to 12. The pink-flowered

Barbie computer and the royal-blue Hot Wheels computer each came

packaged with 20 software titles. But many more of the titles in the Hot

Wheels package were educational -- leading to public criticism of the toy

company. Mattel says it wasn't trying to slight girls, but that there are

simply more Barbie software titles than Hot Wheels software available,

and so there wasn't as much room in the Barbie package for educational

titles.

Still, for some people, the different treatment touched a raw nerve. Gender

marketing "is very out of step with what adult men and women are doing,"

says Pamela Haag, director of research at the American Association of

University Women's Educational Foundation. "It really is anachronistic."

In the case of Toys "R" Us, Ms. Hendrix-Jenkins has organized a

campaign to protest the "Boy's World" -- "Girl's World" layout, which the

Paramus, N.J., retailer is currently deploying in its 707 stores nationwide.

She has signed up more than a dozen organizations -- including the

Women's Reproductive Health Initiative, of Washington, the Feminist

Karate Union, of Seattle, and the Men & Fathers Resource Center, of

Austin, Texas -- to oppose what she sees as stereotyping from an early

age.

Toys "R" Us Inc. is taking pains to stamp out the PR brush fire. Although

the company told shareholders about the new design at its annual meeting

in June and unveiled the new layout in Atlanta last year, a spokeswoman

said in an interview, "There was no plan to have a specific boys' and girls'

world." The store directory labeling the sections that way were "wrong,"

she said, adding, "When it was brought to our attention, we removed it."

Warren Kornblum, chief marketing officer for Toys "R" Us, says the design

is the result of exhaustive research into customer-buying patterns. The

company identified "logical adjacencies," or products likely to be

purchased by the same type of consumer, and then placed them next to

one another in the store, he says. Thus, Easy Bake Ovens are near Barbies

and not near action figures.

"Our intention is not to be gender-specific but relevant to all our

customers," Mr. Kornblum said. "It's not our job to create what kids want

and to push them one way or the other."

'Boys Will Be Boys'

Another possible view of the gender distinctions is that they pay

long-overdue attention to the girls' market. An old retailing rule of thumb

has it that you can sell a "boy" product to a girl, but not the reverse.

"Manufacturers subscribe to the notion that boys will be boys, and girls will

be both," says James U. McNeal, professor of marketing at Texas A & M

University.

Boys in particular can be hostile if girls invade their space. Meanwhile,

stores devoted to young girls, such as the Limited Too Inc. chain, are

thriving as girls revel in their own retail world, complete with pint-size

lingerie and makeup counters.

For Fox, the gender gap adds up to two new niche markets to conquer.

Mr. Cronin says Fox's new digital cable channels are extensions of the

different TV-viewing patterns for boys and girls already apparent in

Nielsen ratings. "In general terms, girls are more interested in entertainment

that is more relationship-oriented" while boys "are more action-oriented,"

he says.

Even among preschoolers, Fox says, there are a few differences in

viewing. "St. Bear's Dolls Hospital" has been slotted to appear on the girls'

network, while "Captain Kangaroo," a show that would seem to be

gender-neutral, has been slotted to appear on the boys' channel.

Other shows slated to appear on the girlzChannel include "Adventures of

Shirley Holmes: Detective" and "Sweet Valley High." Shows on the

boyzChannel include "Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog" and "Spider-Man."

Fox has a panel of pediatricians, developmental psychologists and other

kids experts, including Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, advising it on programming.

The key to making gender segmentation work, Mr. Cronin says, is "serving

each gender and making sure we're not stereotyping."

Write to Lisa Bannon at lisa.bannon@wsj.com