The Barbie Movie = a marketing masterclass

There aren’t many people that have escaped the Barbie-mania that has swept over the Uk over the last few months, and that’s far from accidental. Barbie the toy has always been a little bit of a crowd splitter, with people liking or hating the doll that was seen to symbolise a lot about women, but the film… that hit differently.

As someone who was most definitely in the ‘not a fan’ camp, I started noticing the marketing campaign as it unfolded quite a few months ago. There were filters, collabs, pink billboards… and when the film premiered (and the Malibu Dream House was available on Air BnB), the PR machine that is Barbie went up many (many) levels. I’ve been in awe of how everything pink and Barbie has infiltrated so many areas of our lives over the last few months. As I chat about in this episode of the podcast.

Even though the reported budget exceeds what most have to spend in a few lifetimes, there’s a whole lot to learn from Barbie, as I share in this episode of the podcast. Here’s how this podcast is broken down:

Let’s start at the beginning… Barbie’s history and stereotypes

There’s no doubt that Barbie has historically been well known for stereotypes connected to the appearance of women. I feel that this was one of the parts about the brand that, over the years, was so galvanising. As people’s body shapes and lifestyles have changed, I was interested to see how the scriptwriters would address this in the movie… but they have.

The marketing masterclass

As a marketer (or marketeer- however you want to say it!), I’ve been fascinated by the marketing masterclass that the Barbie Movie has been. Yes, the team has had a large budget, but the creativity and cleverness that has been applied in so many different ways has been- in my opinion at least- very exciting and inspiring to watch.

Collaborations

A big part of the Barbie Movie promotion has been around collaborations. These have spanned industries from games to cosmetics, food and so much more. Collaboration can be a highly effective way to marketing a brand and the fact that so much time, energy and money was put into this side of marketing here- and how effective it was- really does prove this and then some.

Promotional activities

It didn’t stop with collaborations- in fact- Barbie infiltrated every area of our lives around launch, including the Barbie pink Google search and the Barbie filters all over social. Not only were these fun and engaging but helped to further heighten the buzz and excitement around the film’s release.

Branding and consistency

One area that the team nailed was the detail around Barbie’s brand identity. The specific shade of pink, the specific fonts in campaigns… every time we as the public see these, not only can we instantly recognise them without the whole story, but it further reinforces the brand recognition and recall.

Influencer marketing and social proof

I also talk about how influencer and social media played a huge part in the hype, and this was largely thanks to the thought that the marketing team put in to make these interactions engaging, interesting and photo worthy. These steps illustrated the power of social proof in building credibility and excitement around a brand or product.

And the star of the show- Margot Robbie

Margot had a huge impact on the marketing of the movie and continued to ensure column inches for each launch around the globe thanks to her fashion choices mimicking those of actual Barbies through the ages. This helped to generate even more interest in the Movie and a lot of media coverage too.