Sasha and Malia Dolls Irk First Lady

Marketing mania confronts Obamas before first weekend in White House.

ByABC News
January 23, 2009, 12:36 PM

Jan. 23, 2009— -- Washington has quieted down. The president is hard at work. The Obama girls are back in school. The Jonas Brothers have left the White House.

But as the first family settles into its first weekend in their new home, an interruption in Sasha and Malia's privacy has already given them a taste of the new normal.

Watch "Nightline" for the full report.

This week Michelle Obama's spokeswoman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, explained how the first lady feels about new dolls on the market that share her daughters' names.

"We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes," Lelyveld said in a statement.

Though dollmaker Ty Inc. initially said it hoped the Obama girls would like the "Sweet Sasha" and "Marvelous Malia" dolls that debuted this month, it now says they are not modeled on the first daughters.

At every turn, marketing mania has engulfed President Barack Obama, from Obama action figures to cocktails and cupcakes. Daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, have inevitably entered the spotlight with their dad -- from appearing on magazine covers to creating a spike in demand at J. Crew for the coats they wore on Inauguration Day.

At Pew Research Center's project for excellence in journalism, Deputy Director Amy Mitchell told ABCNews.com that today's rapid spread of information makes for a unique challenge in maintaining the girls' privacy.

"As with news, commercial items can spread much faster as well when you have Craigslist, when you have eBay, when you have Amazon," Mitchell said.

But she said the blitz is one thing when it comes to the president and another when it concerns his daughters.

"The creating of Obama dolls, Obama cookies, all sorts of Obama paraphrenalia, that's part of a free market system in the country, of commercialism," Mitchell said. "People tend to get not as upset, I think, when it's of an individual who has chosen to be a public figure versus young kids who are just trying to grow up," Mitchell said.