When you think of Aristotle, a picture of a bearded ancient philosopher from Greece comes to mind. But for toy manufacturer Mattel, Aristotle has a much more negative connotation - so much so that it might not want to sully the name of any more famous philosophers in future product launches. The Aristotle was to be Mattel's venture in a new area, away from toy lines like Barbie and Fisher?Price. This new area was in the world of smart speakers, voice?activated devices that respond to voices and take orders from users to perform various tasks. But Mattel's focus was on children, offering Aristotle as a virtual assistant to the toddler to tween crowd. Some of the functions of the Aristotle that were announced in early 2017 were alerting when babies wake up, ordering diapers when needed, reading books aloud, and helping kids with homework. The idea of Aristotle was that it would grow with children and evolve in meeting their needs in different ways, based on age. But some of the proposed features of Aristotle when children grew older were a bit worrisome, such as requiring kids to say "thank you" and "please" before agreeing to complete tasks, and blocking children from using other connected devices like televisions until the children had completed certain chores around the house. The plan was to ship Aristotle in mid?2018, for a price of around US$300. It adjusted the launch date to 2019, amid some concerns about the product. In May 2018, the Campaign for Commercial?Free Childhood started an online petition, citing concerns over children and privacy. The petition states in part: "In order for Aristotle to work, it collects and stores data about a child's activity and interactions with it. It also connects to other apps and online retailers, which means that data may be shared with those partner corporations, which may use it to target the marketing of other products to young children and their parents." Beyond the targeting of children, other serious concerns were raised about privacy issues. A president of a privacy company noted, "Companies that offer Internet?connected toys are simply spying on young children. And they can't even protect the data they secretly gather. They have already lost passwords and personal data and exposed families to ransomware demands. Toys that spy are unsafe for children." Due to the increasing concern over commercialism and privacy related to Aristotle, the product was shelved in October 2018. In responding to the backlash against Aristotle, a Mattel spokesperson simply said: "(Mattel) conducted an extensive review of the Aristotle product and decided that it did not fully align with Mattel's new technology strategy." However, linking children's toys with technology is not something new for Mattel. In 2016, Mattel launched Hello Barbie, a Wi?Fi ?enabled Barbie doll that would respond to a child's questions via the Internet. Hello Barbie had a microphone that recorded what was being asked and then relayed this information to an electronic system that processed the question and composed a response. Unfortunately, Hello Barbie was relatively easy for hackers to access: "The information stored by the doll could allow hackers to take over a home Wi?Fi network and from there gain access to other Internet connected devices, steal personal information and cause other problems for the owners, potentially without their knowledge." It seems that Mattel's attempts to take their toy lines digital have been fraught with missteps and failure. A key concern raised by childhood experts and researchers related to what types of actions a product like Aristotle or Hello Barbie would undertake. Many of the features proposed by Mattel's products were replacing important tasks that real?life parents should be performing. MIT technology expert Sherry Turkle observed: ""This is not at all an anti?technology position. This is about a particular kind of technology, one that pretends empathy. We can't put children in this position of pretend empathy and then expect that children will know what empathy is. Or give them pretend as?if relationships, and then think that we'll have children who know what relationships are. It really says a lot about how far we have gone down the path of forgetting what those things are." Where has Mattel failed on the path to creating these 'tech' toys? In the words of the famous philosopher Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

a) Define the problems, then choose one focus problem

b) List relevant evidence and facts from the case

c) What business and marketing concepts can be applied

d) Begin the analysis

e) What are your main insights

f) Formulate recommendations

g) Chose one recommendation and create an action plan

h) How will success be measured?

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