Mattel Apologizes After Accidentally Promoting A Porn Site On Packaging For New 'Wicked' Doll
The Wizard of Oz spinoff movie Wicked is coming out in a few weeks so promotion has ramped up, and the massive campaign includes collabs with over 50+ major brands from cosmetics, jewelry & clothing to liquors & coffees and more. Unfortunately the biggest buzz of all has come from their crossover with Mattel, but it's not exactly the PR they're hoping for.
Via the AP:
Toy giant Mattel says it “deeply” regrets an error on the packaging of its “Wicked” movie-themed dolls, which mistakenly links toy buyers to a pornographic website.
The error gained attention on social media over the weekend, where numerous users shared photos of the URL printed on the back of the boxes for the special edition dolls, which feature characters from the movie adaptation of “Wicked” set to hit theaters later this month. Instead of linking to Universal Pictures’ official WickedMovie.com page, the website listed leads to an adult film site that requires consumers to be over 18 to enter.
In a statement sent to The Associated Press, Mattel said it was “made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls,” which it said are primarily sold in the U.S. “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this,” the company added.
Twelve year old me getting the doll & looking up the website to see if there's any fun games or apps:
As a big J journalist I had to do my due diligence. I headed on over to Wicked.com (no free ads) and thankfully for the kids' sake there are several click walls you have to get through and, although Stormy Daniels was front & center, I couldn't even find a single nipple. Seems like you gotta pay to go further. Which oddly enough I could because it appears my home address links to "a double platinum account"??? Obviously some kind of glitch.
That being said, porn-Wicked's specific "thing" is 'producing quality parody porn movies', so they have an opportunity to get really meta here with movie-Wicked if they want to (but probably not a great idea considering the audience)(what a weird thing to even type out, Kate). I looked around on their socials and they haven't even addressed it, but I'm sure they're enjoying a new surge of curious clicks because this story has blown up in the news.
As for the toys, they've been recalled and maybe this is naive but as for the ones already sold I highly doubt anyone actually goes to the sites on those boxes? Anyways, time to clock out and definitely not ask my significant other about that double platinum account ha ha