One Wicked Typo

Mattel issued a short apology for an embarrassing typo on the new Wicked doll packaging. Students can analyze the company’s response and consider how to prevent URL typos.

The dolls coincide with the launch of Wicked, a popular Broadway musical made into a two-part movie. On the packaging, we see that the intended website, www.wickedmovie.com is missing the word “movie” and directs to a porn site.

The company sent a statement to news outlets—the same they posted on Instagram, shown here. A post on X about the typo received 26.1 million views but no response from Mattel, which last posted on X in January 2019. Students might weigh in on whether Mattel should still have a presence on X if the account is inactive.

Mattel’s statement reads quite “corporate” for a toy company. Of course, they need to address the error with an appropriate, serious tone, but that first long sentence, with its passive voice and unclear reference doesn’t seem fitting to the occasion. What is the “immediate action to remedy this”? The deed is done. “Consumers” creates a distance between the company and kids and parents. Also curious is the invitation to contact customer service. First, it doesn’t feel genuine without a phone number or email. Second, what could possibly be the “further information”?

We don’t see a response to the question below Mattel’s statement, asking about quality control. That’s not a question the company could reasonably answer on Instagram, but students might consider what went wrong. I can imagine that one or more people proofread the box text but didn’t follow the link. This is a good reminder for students, if only to ensure that links work. The challenge here is that the link can’t be clicked on; proofreading requires an extra step of typing it into a browser, which, apparently, no one did.