Barbie: a $150 million marketing campaign

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You've never heard so much about Barbie, and with good reason: brands have seized on the media buzz around the Barbie movie to launch exclusive, limited-edition product collections.

Barbie the movie: a not-so-new project

The Barbie movie project has been on the drawing board since 2009. While the role of Barbie was to be played by actress Amy Schumer, she finally left the project in 2017, leaving her place to the talented Margot Robbie, who shares the bill with Ryan Gosling.

Barbie: 13 years in the making

It took 13 years for the Barbie movie to see the light of day, due to a script that was unconvincing for too long and a lack of enthusiasm on the part of popular actresses to play the role of Barbie. While the reasons for this were mainly to do with the film industry, the blonde doll's lack of diversity earned Barbie too much criticism, which put a damper on the film studios.

It was finally in 2018 that director Greta Gerwig and screenwriter Noah Baumbach managed to land a script highlighting empowerment in a touching and funny summer comedy.

Barbie: a marketing campaign to match the film's ambition

150 million dollars: that's the price of the marketing campaign for the Barbie film. A substantial budget for a successful return on investment. While Barbie is still number one at the box office, the film's takings are already approaching $300 million.

The whole Barbie campaign has been designed to create an incredible buzz around the film. The brains behind the Barbie commando operation are Warner Bros, Pictures, Mattel and the French agency Marque et Film. The entire marketing team worked closely with Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach to create an advertising universe as close as possible to the spirit of the film event.

The social media campaign

While the television campaign remained particularly classic, with excerpts from the film shown on screens around the world, the social media campaign surpassed anything that had been done to date. Barbie's pink and her lively music have taken over our smartphones. With augmented reality, video reels, viral TikToks and high-performance posts, the social media campaign alone generated $100 million, contributing 50% to the Barbie film's success.

Effective partnerships

The virality of social media posts and videos on social networks is partly due to Barbie's successful partnerships with powerful retailers. Like make-up brand NYX or fast-fashion brand Zara, Barbie-colored collections have all created a buzz on the Internet. The influence campaign around the products has a lot to do with this. Although no figures have yet been released, the panel of web stars solicited for this campaign promises interesting spin-offs, both for the film and for the advertisers.

Barbie doll sales on the rise

In recent years, Mattel, the brand that owns Barbie, has been busy offering dolls that are more in line with consumer expectations. On toy store shelves, blonde, brunette, black, Asian and even non-binary Barbies share the spotlight. The media buzz surrounding Barbie has made a major contribution to the positive image of Barbie, boosting sales by 20% since the launch of the marketing campaigns.

The Barbie phenomenon has only just begun, and while the film has only been out for a week, new projects following the same idea are already in the starting blocks, such as PollyPocket, to be played by Emily in Paris star Lily Collins.

The best Barbie marketing operations:

1. The Barbie house for rent on Airbnb

2. A giant Barbie in the streets of Dubai

3. The Barbie Burger from Burger King

4. Barbie bus shelters

5. The Maserati Barbie car

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