How marketers can leverage Barbie movie marketing campaign
By Oluwaseyi Lawal
The Barbie movie surpassed Box Office expectations with $337 million on its opening weekend. The reason for this cannot be far fetched. It was as result of a well planned and detailed marketing campaign.
The pre-launch of the Barbie movie alone generated serious hype. From Billboards, to a real Malibu dream house on Airbnb that the target audience can stay for free, partnering with lots of big and tops brands like cricks, Xbox and Cold Stone, barbie selfie generators that went viral months before it’s release, TikTok filter that makes you a real life Barbie, a fully interactive barbie cafe, life size barbie outfit worn by Margot Robbie, all these leading up to the movie’s release.
There is a whole lot for copywriters, business owners, Ad agencies, Marketers to learn from this impeccable and outstanding strategy employed by Warner Bros, the Barbie marketing company. All the marketing campaigns techniques in Barbie the movie can be replicated by creatives in the marketing industry regardless of the size of the brand.
A unique brand experience
All the strategies used in the campaign were unique to barbie alone. Everything brought to mind barbie and barbie only. It was authentic and unique to the brand which is important for every brand, product or service. If anything not barbie related was included, the audience is likely to have felt that the Barbie brand was an imposter. For example, speaking on a podcast that has zero connection to your brand can do your brand damage than good. Ensure that you create a consistent brand experience that is unique to your brand. From social media, to emails to adverts; be sure of who or what your brand is.
Consistent visual branding
Colors, logos and fonts are part of what appeals to people’s visuals. The Barbie movie leveraged solely on the color pink. It has it own shade of pink; Pantone 219C. Anyone who sees the colour pink immediately thinks of Barbie. Everything Barbie related, everywhere had the theme color pink. You go online, look up Barbie the movie on Google and it comes up on a pink theme. Barbie has always been associated with the color pink. Warner Bros. President of global marketing, Josh Goldstine speaking to Variety about the Barbie pink buzz said, “Barbie Pink has been such a part of the brand. This movie has a wonderful girl-power element, and pink became the color of the movie. We saw it start to resonate in the culture very early in the long process. The concept of Barbie-core coming to life in fashion kept going. It didn’t have its moment; it sustained and kept growing and growing with the movie.”
As a brand, consistent visual branding helps to imprint your brand in the mind of your audience. It makes you memorable and recognizable. You can guess some brands just by seeing their colors. You can use the color in your website, emails and social media. This will help you stand out.
Collaborations, PR and user generated content
With over 100 brands collaboration, press coverage on magazines and TV shows and lots of User Generated contents, Barbie fantasy world was brought into reality. it took over the real world. Warner Bros. President of Global Marketing stated that some brands made their own “decisions to be part of the color schema of the movie. Fashion, frankly, jumped onto the bandwagon. Brands wanted to become part of this because they saw the film was finding its way into culture in such a dynamic way. It stopped becoming a marketing campaign and took on the quality of a movement.”
Find brands that meet up to your budget, audience probably give complimentary products and services and theme up to promote each other. It was a win win for Barbie the movie and brands like Cold Stone, Crocs, Burger King, etc. You don’t have to sacrifice your Brand’s integrity for the other brand all in the name of collaboration and exposure. It can be a win win. For PR, you don’t necessarily need to feature the big magazines before you have a great PR. You can post on a fitting blog or speak about it on a podcast. Any brand of any size can leverage in this.
User generated content is when fans or consumers post your brand or product or service on their platform. It is the most effective type of free Advertising. Barbie was heavily promoted with UFC. That is the power of creating something fun and sharable. A fun filter, a quiz about your brand, whatever is trending, jump on it and create a context about your brand.
Knowing your audience
So everyone who’s always known barbie would probably think it’s business as usual, (for kids). But the Barbie marketing campaign spoke to the audience which was everyone. The millennials, the Gen Zs and those who grew up with the Barbie brand and toys. Another reason the movie contained so much adult humor despite the fact that it was rated PG 13. Most of the collaborations were with brands 20 and 30 year olds would be interested in. Many marketing events were geared towards adults. Knowing your audience is the foundation of marketing. Who they are, what they do, what they love, what they want to hear; cannot be underestimated.
Being consistently out for long
Everyone wants overnight success but that’s not possible even for Barbie. Build anticipation slowly and overtime. Mattel announced that Barbie was coming and that Margot Robbie was playing Barbie in 2019; four years before release. The first look of Margot Robbie as barbie was released in 2022, then subsequently the reveal of the cast, the first trailer, second trailer, the main trailer, up till the release. Eight months before release, Barbie was already a sensation everyone welcomed and was familiar with. Warner Bros. President of global marketing, Josh Goldstine Speaking about Barbie the movie said, “We saw it as a breadcrumb strategy, where we gave people little elements of the movie to stimulate curiosity and that created conversation.”
This is what every brand can replicate. Show up consistently and keep your brand at the fore front of the minds of your audience. You can start your campaign at least six months before launch. Generate curiosity and excitement about your coming brand of product, educate your audience about your products or brand and share it’s benefits to build desire.
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