Friday, December 21, 2012

Easy-Bake Oven Gets a Makeover



Boys Just Wanna Bake Too: Hasbro to introduce a more manly color scheme for the Easy-Bake Oven.

McKenna Pope of New Jersey wanted to give her little brother, Gavyn, an Easy-Bake Oven for his birthday, but felt that there should be more than just two choices of pink or purple.  The 13-year-old pre-teen took matters into her own hands and not only contacted Hasbro requesting more gender-neutral colors for the oven, but also presented the company with a 40,000-signature petition backing her up. Turns out, Hasbro had already been working on updating the popular product and the company invited McKenna and her family to the their Pawtucket, Rhode Island, headquarters to view a proto-type of a new design and color for the oven.

McKenna met with the Easy-Bake product team and offered her suggestions for improvement, including a request to feature boys in advertising for the oven.  Both boys and girls have always played with the Easy-Bake Oven, no matter the color scheme, but only girls have been featured in advertising.  Hasbro has agreed to do almost all of what McKenna has requested, including featuring boys in their advertising.

A cool black, silver and blue version of the Easy Bake Oven will be unveiled in February, 2013, at Toy Fair in New York.  We can't wait to see it! Budding chefs will have to wait a tad longer until the summer of 2013. 

Awesome job, McKenna! Thanks!