Why is Princess Celestia pink?

[Desert Rose]

I've been wondering this for a while. How come Princess Celestia is always pink as a toy when she's white in the tv show? I know TRU will release a white Princess Celestia soon (read that here somewhere on the forum).
But does anyone know why Hasbro made the toys of Celestia pink to begin with? O.o Just curious about it

[GloriaFan]

To appeal to girls more, perhaps? 

[OctoberFlash]

I've heard that it's because Hasbro felt pink would appeal more to little girls. Similar reasons made her a princess - Lauren Faust wanted her to be Queen Celestia, but Hasbro felt that because of things like Disney, "queen" has become an evil thing to little girls, so they made her a princess. xD

[Desert Rose]

Yeh I can see why it would be more appealing to little girls with a pink pony, but it still doesn't explain why they suddenly had a change of heart and made her white on the TV show Odd they didn't keep her pink in the show aswell for the same reasons.

[Raindrop]

Hasbro wanted to make money selling toys to the preschool girl "princess" market, and pink is a popular, "safe" color for a little girl toy.  It's pure economics and has nothing to do with the show.

[Rion]

Celestia is actually what appears to be a very, very faint tone of pink, which just so happens to look much more white. I guess they ended up deciding to... really make her pink though.

The same thing kinda goes with Vinyl/DJ Pon3 though, she looks white but is actually very faint yellow. Oddly enough, Hasbro has made her toy white though. Guess she's not getting the Celestia treatment, lol.

[Dibbles]

Celestia is actually what appears to be a very, very faint tone of pink, which just so happens to look much more white. I guess they ended up deciding to... really make her pink though.

The same thing kinda goes with Vinyl/DJ Pon3 though, she looks white but is actually very faint yellow. Oddly enough, Hasbro has made her toy white though. Guess she's not getting the Celestia treatment, lol.

They both look white to me. Vinyl is a little more cream-colored, but I didn't even notice until you brought that up.

[Cucco]

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

[MANIMAL!]

Hasbro said it was to avoid accusations of racism. Kinda like how our President is now pink. HA! Just kidding, I'm nuts for Obama, he's great!

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

Yeah, they said it's what the stores are willing to buy the most of.

[slight edit for language ~ hathorcat]

[Phekzhen]

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

Yes, this is true.

Look at Pinkie Pie EVERYTHING on the shelves. Even though Twlight is the main character, we see PP everywhere. And G3 collectors know all about the influx of Pinkie.

Big retailers still see MLP as a little girl's thing, which is why they demand toys marketable at them. That's why toys for "collectors" are sold at Comic Con, because everyone knows collectors will be there, not little girls.

And could you imagine how hard it would be to get Celstia's faint pink as a plastic? It would fade and get wicked dirty.

[Fanimusmaximus]

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

That or is was a decision made before the show came out.

[Dibbles]

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

Yes, this is true.

Look at Pinkie Pie EVERYTHING on the shelves. Even though Twlight is the main character, we see PP everywhere. And G3 collectors know all about the influx of Pinkie.

Big retailers still see MLP as a little girl's thing, which is why they demand toys marketable at them. That's why toys for "collectors" are sold at Comic Con, because everyone knows collectors will be there, not little girls.

And could you imagine how hard it would be to get Celstia's faint pink as a plastic? It would fade and get wicked dirty.

This. Twilight is purple, though, so I don't understand why she doesn't get more merch. Not all the ponies can be pink.

[Phekzhen]

I believe Lauren Faust addressed this somewhere -- apparently companies are more willing to buy a toy if it's pink. Something like "We'll buy 100. But if you make it pink, we'll buy 500."

That or is was a decision made before the show came out.

The collectors set with the fully molded characters was made to promote the show, and that was our first foray into pinklestia. And since the show only exists to promote the toys, I wouldn't be surprised if the toy department decided to ignore Faust's color pallets for the toys.

[hathorcat]

As others have mentioned - although I dont quite believe its just the retailers who make the condition - Hasbro are not silly and are primarily in the business of making toys and making money - pink ponies must sell better than white ponies...if they didnt they would have changed the predominantly pink tendencies of the line by now.

[Zapper]

Hasbro wanted to make money selling toys to the preschool girl "princess" market, and pink is a popular, "safe" color for a little girl toy.  It's pure economics and has nothing to do with the show.

Came here to say this.

(Sorry, little rant about "girls toys" coming up )

That's also the reason why Princess Cadence and her wedding with Twilight's brother was made into such a big thing on the show. Hasbro was planning a wedding set because gender stereotyping has made girls and young women obsessed with that kind of thing.

From an early age girls get told that the most important thing in life is "finding your true love", marrying him and - at best - having a bunch of babies with him.
Also weddings should be only about you, not your lover, you get to wear a nice dress and be the center of attention.
Weddings get marketed to little girls like war gets marketed to little boys. If you think about it, it's a really manipulative and sexist thing.

And of course they had to create a new character for that wedding set. One that would fit the love theme perfectly - Cadence was created. And of course she had to be pink and her power had to be "love" - and yet another "princess" character.

Now I'm not saying that the wedding set is horrible or the wedding episodes were horrible *g*
In fact I really liked the wedding episodes and I also have nothing against Cadence (even though I think her character design is really over the top).

Little girls wouldn't love pink that much, or weddings, or whatever - if it wasn't so shoved into their faces by society and toy manufactures.

So with Cadence being a canon character now, Hasbro probably felt it was "safe" enough to finally make a show-accurate Celestia.
Btw, little girls are not stupid and they surely must have realized that the Celestia toy didn't look like the Celestia they knew from TV. Just because something is pink doesn't mean girls will like it better.

This clip is probably well-known by now