Page 26 - Ty Warner Case Study

Sales said that the dolls were not made to physically resemble either of the
Obama daughters and that the names chosen "worked very well with the dolls".
Ty said that the process of naming dolls is proprietary information and would
not say how the names were given to the dolls. In February 2009, Ty decided to
retire the original dolls and give them new names, Marvelous Mariah and Sweet
Sydney. Warner said the original names were inspired by what he called "this
historic time in our nation's history." The CEO of Ty said the name change was
due to Michelle Obama's disapproval of the original names. Ty promised to
donate the profits from sales of the original dolls to a charity, the Andre Agassi
Charitable Foundation for youth education