Mattel's massive recalls were received with much surprise and regret, as the company has long cultivated a nice image of tight control of overseas production and reliable quality.

I don't mean to question its record of quality control in the past, but just would like to point out the impressive work of its public relations team, especially in this crisis management project for the recalls.

My experience with Mattel's media relations has been positive. They are very responsive and professional.

They also played a nice trick in the August 14th recall. The wording of "the nearly 19 million toys that either had excessive amounts of lead paint or had small magnets that could easily be swallowed by children" appeared in the press release, repeated in the press conference, and used by most media.

How smart it is to bundle the 18.2 million toys with magnets that had design flaw instead of sub-par production with the 436,000 lead-tainted toys!

I made the facts and details clear in my story for Plastics News. But unfortunately most publications I've seen used the round-up figure and didn't distinguish between the design and production problems.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce officials tried to clarify by claiming "only 15 percent of Mattel's two recalls in August were related to lead paint." But the message didn't come clear or convincing. I don't think the Western audience like percentage points in general; also it failed to point out the remaining part of the recalled toys were poorly designed in the States, rather than having production-related problems.