Sometimes large businesses actually do pay attention to the little people out there. 13 year old McKenna Pope of Garfield, New Jersey started a petition at change.org to make the Hasbro Easy-Bake Ovens in neutral colors and to stop having “gender-role specific” colors. She also wanted boys featured on the packaging and in the marketing materials.
Armed with 44,000 plus signatures, including those from some celebrity chefs, she has been able to make a difference. Now, Hasbro will be unveiling the black and silver Easy-Bake Oven in February and they even invited Pope and her family recently to their company’s Pawtucket, Rhode Island headquarters.
As Hasbro vice president of global brands and publicity, Julie Duffy, told TODAY, “We value input from our consumers and given the widespread interest in McKenna Pope’s story, we extended an invitation to McKenna and her family to visit Hasbro and meet with our EASY-BAKE team.”
Watch for the new design at the New York Toy Fair in February 2013.