What We Loved About the Barbie Movie's Marketing

Apparently, they changed the song to 🎶 Come on Barbie, Let's Go MARKETING🎶

Over the past few months, you've likely seen the iconic hot pink cover your social media feed and store shelves! The Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is hitting screens on July 21st and the lead-up to the movie's release has been anything but inside of the box. With multiple collaborations, channels, and campaigns, the Barbie movie has taken socials by a pink-hued storm!

Let's break down all the campaigns that they crafted for this strategy

Strategetic Brand Collaborations:

We can't even begin to list all the brand collabs for this movie! But let me tell you, there were A LOT of strategic brand collaborations involved here; Kitsch, Ruggable Collection, Forever 21, Pinkberry, Boohoo to name a few. We are talking Barbie-themed popcorn, the Barbie Dreamhouse on Air BnB, and let's not forget about the Homesick Dreamhouse Candle or Coldstone Creamery's All That Glitters is Pink Ice Cream.

Social Media

Have you seen the selfie generator, TikTok lens extension and the official Twitter emoji, yet? Or perhaps, you've seen one of the many Barbie memes that went viral back in April, which reached over 6 million engagements across social media in the past six months.

Pop-Ups

And we thought the leaked photos of the filming at Venice Beach was the only in-person Barbie footage we were going to get?! Barbie is popping-up everywhere. With pop-ups in New York City, Chicago, and Washington D.C., they have even taken a more localized approach with their marketing, too. Who's checking out Barbie's pop-up Malibu Cafe in Chicago?

What we love about it

Leveraging Branding:

They have a major advantage of being a household brand, of course. But the way that they utilize this is amazing!

It's strategetic

I guess you could say that they took the 'go big or go...back to the Barbie dreamhouse!' approach with their marketing here, but it's still strategetic! The collaborations with millennial and gen-Z brands is spot on for the audience of the movie, and while it's reaching even more of an expanded audience beyond that, who can complain about that!

Utilizing UGC

With features like the lens and selfie generator, they are FULLY utilizing user-generated content to it's advantage! If there's anything we love more than an interactive audience experience, it's going to be a 7-night stay at the Barbie Dreamhouse. They are getting the audience involved in a variety of ways to get them to interact with the brand and movie.

Creative

They are taking the fun, playful energy that the Barbie brand encompasses and putting that directly into creative campaigns.

Emotions

The fun, yet heartwarming, modern, yet nostalgic feel they are creating throughout their marketing is spot-on. We know that marketing has to feel personal to resonate with our audience. While most of us grew up in a Barbie world, they are able to really evoke that with their efforts.

While we all certainly don't have the Mattel's marketing budget, there are a lot of key takeaways that we can draw from their marketing. Our favorites are, (1) branding is powerful, (2) UGC needs to be utilized, and that creativity & pathos approach can take you anywhere.

While the Barbie brand has been around since 1959, its marketing is anything but stuck in the past for this new movie. What are your favorite takeaways from their marketing? Let's talk about it in our Facebook Community!