Larian, Isaac

Chief Executive Officer of MGA Entertainment

B orn March 28, 1954, in Kashan, Iran; immigratedto the United States, 1971; married; children: Jasmine, Cameron, additional child. Education: California State University, Los Angeles, B.S., 1978.

Addresses: Office—MGA Entertainment, Inc., 16300 Roscoe Blvd., Ste. 200, Van Nuys, CA 91406.

Career

C o-founded ABC Electronics (later known as Micro Games America, then MGA Entertainment), 1979; launched Bratz dolls line, 2001.

Awards: Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Ernst & Young, 2004.

Sidelights

T he creative force behind the Bratz dolls, IsaacLarian is the founder and chief executive officer of MGAEntertainment. Beginning his career by selling consumer electronics and hand-held electronic games, his company found its greatest success with the Bratz, which essentially overcame Barbie as the world’s most popular toy. Of his success with the dolls, Larian told Denise Abbott of Hollywood Reporter, “As an entrepreneur, a lot of my decisions are based on instinct and gut feeling. They don’t all pan out—but this one certainly did.”

Larian was born in 1954 in Kashan, Iran, into a Jewish family, and was raised in the small Jewish community based in Tehran. In 1971, Larian left Iran for California to study civil engineering at California State in Los Angeles. He worked as a dishwasher there to save money for his education. Because of the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s, returning home and working there as he originally planned became an impossibility. Larian remained in the United States and took a different direction in his life and career.

After completing his degree in 1978, Larian, his brother, Farhad, and a brother-in-law co-founded ABC Electronics in 1979. This mail-order company dealt primarily in consumer electronics. Larian’s company really took off in 1987 when he gained the U.S. importing license for the Japanese company Nintendo. When ABC Electronics narrowed its focus to selling only Nintendo’s hand-held electronic games, its name was changed to Micro Games America; it later became MGA Entertainment, Inc.

Over the years, Larian expanded MGA’s product line to include radio-controlled toys and robotic plush animals. One of his company’s first dolls was My Dream Baby, inspired by his own then nine-year-old daughter, Jasmine. The extremely realistic doll used special technology to grow from infant to toddler size and move from crawling to walking. Each doll also grew at its own rate and reacted to its owner. It was introduced in the fall of 2000.

The origins of what would be MGA’s biggest-selling product came from a conversation with a buyer from Wal-Mart. The buyer challenged Larian to create a doll to beat Barbie and Wal-Mart would buy it. Though others dismissed his idea, Larian forged forth and created the Bratz. He was helped by his children and their cousins in his biweekly Kitchen Sink Focus Group. In this informal focus group, he showed them products in development at MGAand talked with them about what kind of toys they wanted.

The result of the challenge was the Bratz dolls. In June of 2001, MGA Entertainment introduced the Bratz, Barbie-like dolls with a more modern, street, hip, urban attitude. The nine-inch dolls had thigh-length hair, exaggerated lips and eyes with makeup as well as street-inspired clothing. Like My Dream Baby, Larian’s daughter Jasmine was especially important to the doll’s development. One of the original Bratz dolls, Yasmin, was also named for her.

From the first, the Bratz were a hit, high on the list of most-wanted toys at Christmas for many years after their introduction. Targeted at a slightly older demographic than Barbie—seven to eleven year olds as opposed to Barbie’s four to six year old—Bratz also appealed to teens and young adults. Approximately 30 months after the Bratz were introduced, 150 million of Bratz and Bratz-related products had been sold worldwide. They soon outsold Barbies in many markets.

Despite their instant popularity, the Bratz dolls were criticized by some psychologists and parents for their effect on children, primarily because the dolls were perceived to be sexualized. Larian dismissed these concerns, believing they were popular because of generational changes that had made Barbies seem more old-fashioned. He also emphasized the racial and cultural diversity of the Bratz which included black, Hispanic, white, andAsian dolls. His research also showed that kids saw the Bratz as being their age while Barbies were perceived as adults. He told Charles Laurence of Sunday Telegraph, “It’s a new generation. Kids are living in a different world. What puzzles me is why other people haven’t worked it out for themselves. I know kids, and they love my toys.”

Larian built on the popularity of Bratz by adding a line of male Bratz dolls, more Bratz girls, limited-edition Bratz in themed sets, and tons of accessories for the dolls. A significant source of income came from licensing the brand for posters, clothes, foot-wear, fashion accessories, and books, as well as other products. There were 200 licenses worldwide by 2003, with more coming in subsequent years. Larian was discerning in what products he would allow the Bratz to appear on since he emphasized responsibility and ethics in his toys. For example, he turned down a chance to put the Bratz on a cigarette lighter in Japan because he did not want the dolls associated with smoking.

The success of MGA Entertainment led to numerous accolades for the company, including being named the Supplier of the Year by Wal-Mart in 2003. That same year, it was given Vendor of the Year Awards from Toys R Us and Target. Larian himself was honored in 2004 as Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. MGA Entertainment’s exponential growth continued in 2004, as it remained the fastest growing consumer entertainment company in the world with $1 billion in retail sales alone that year. Still expanding the Bratz empire, Larian struck a deal with Twentieth Century-Fox for the distribution of Bratz movies. First to hit the market was direct-to-DVD animated The Bratz Go Hollywood, created by MGA Entertainment before the deal was made.

In addition to the Bratz, Larian ensured MGA was diversified. His company created many toys targeted at boys, including Spider-Man 2: The Movie products, R/C Vehicles, and Boys Action. Not content to rest on the success of the Bratz, Larian’s company introduced another line of dolls that year, 4Ever Best Friends, which were targeted at a younger audience than Bratz. Bratz and related accessories still formed the majority of MGA sales, and were in short supply as demand outstripped supply in Christmas 2004. By 2005, the Bratz had 350 licensees, and the company expanded Bratz items to include cosmetics, bedding, digital music players, and other electronic items to retain its core consumers. A television show and more films were in the works, and a related fashion magazine was introduced in the fall of 2005.

In 2005, as MGA Entertainment’s growth slowed slightly, Larian took on Mattel, the company which created Barbie. He sued them on several fronts, including unfair competition and intellectual property infringement. Larian accused Mattel of creating a new line of dolls, called My Scene, which imitated looks, packaging, and themes of his Bratz dolls. Lar-ian also claimed that Mattel intimidated retailers and licensees for doing business with his company and tried to control the doll hair supply. A year later, Mattel countersued, accusing MGA of stealing company secrets, including plans for what became the Bratz doll line as well as expansion-related information. Specifically, Mattel believed that former employees, including doll designer Carter Bryant, created the Bratz dolls while working for Mattel and hid the concept. Bryant and the others later took jobs with MGA.

While the suit was ongoing, Larian focused on expanding his company. To increase MGA Entertainment’s sales and profits, Larian worked to expand his company’s international sales. By 2006, MGA was opening direct sales offices in countries like Mexico and Canada, with more planned in certain European countries. Larian made the choice because he and his company felt their previous licensed distributors there were not maximizing the company’s potential and they could do it better themselves despite the higher costs involved.

In 2006, Larian said believed that the Bratz’s full potential would be reached in three or four years, though the dolls and related products were already pulling in $600 to $800 million annually for MGA. To ensure the long-term stability of the company, he continued to expand its product base to include more toy lines and by becoming the licensee for the Shrek movies and Marvel comic characters. MGA’s future was also to include more product lines like sporting goods, bikes, and soft goods such as clothing and shoes.

Explaining Larian’s success, Jim Gianopulos, the co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, told Christina MacDonald of the Hollywood Reporter, “Isaac Larian is a visionary entrepreneur. He understands consumer, the retail infrastructure, and creative properties, which is a great combination.” Larian also believed in himself, telling Australia’s Sunday Herald Sun, “I was always a big dreamer. The human mind and energy is so vast and powerful that I believe you can make everything possible if you truly believe in it . If I can do it, everyone else can.”

Sources

Advertising Age, November 17, 2003, p. S17.

BusinessWeek, May 2, 2005, p. 76; December 18, 2006, p. 13. Business Wire, February 10, 2000; January 7, 2004; February 12, 2004; March 3, 2004; July 13, 2004.

Chicago Sun-Times, March 5, 2004, p. 55.

Daily Variety, June 20, 2006, p. A.

Hollywood Reporter, June 8, 2004; June 21, 2005.

Independent on Sunday (London, England), December 19, 2004, p. 2.

Los Angeles Times, November 21, 2006, p. C1.

New York Times, October 13, 2005, p. C1.

Playthings, June 1, 2006, p. 8.

Sunday Herald Sun (Australia), April 9, 2006, p. F3.

Sunday Telegraph (London, England), December 21, 2003, p. 1.

—A. Petruso