It’s ‘Barbie’ Marketing Mania at Warner Bros. and Even Competitors Are in Awe

Originally published at TheWrap

by KRISTEN LOPEZ and SCOTT MENDELSON | June 30, 2023 @ 6:00 AM

The assault of pink is driving consumer awareness and what looks to be a big opening weekend

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few months you’ve come into contact with something themed to the upcoming Warner Bros. summer film, “Barbie.”

Currently, you can pre-order a Barbie-themed Xbox that you can play — barring you win the company’s sweepstakes for it — in your Barbie painted home (part of the movie’s partnership with Backdrop paint) and sleep in a bed with Barbie pillows (as part of their partnership with online retailer Kitsch). And don’t forget to protect all that with a home insurance policy courtesy of Progressive, whose new commercial takes place in Barbie’s Dreamhouse! And that’s just the few that pop up on TV, Twitter and Instagram feeds in the last 48 hours.

It’s not precisely known how many active “Barbie” partnerships are currently out there, but “Barbie” mania is upon us — and it’s impressing everyone in Hollywood.

“Warner Bros. has successfully executed a wall-to-wall domination campaign that feels fun, inclusive and wholly sells the film as a theatrical ‘event’ the likes of which we haven’t seen since pre-COVID,” marketing consultant Dan Ortiz told TheWrap. And the studio definitely needs the win, especially after its terrible opening for its big-budget superhero saga “The Flash.”

Part of that is already inherent in the IP itself, with Mattel building a fan base by selling Barbie dolls all the way back to the 1950s. “So many generations know what Barbie is,” said an insider with knowledge of studio marketing.

“The first part of the marketing campaign for Barbie was done by Mattel because they are the ones who have invested billions of dollars in evolving [Barbie]. It’s not a heavy lift,” the insider continued. “You can look at Pantone’s Barbie pink and know exactly what that is.”

But by emphasizing the “Barbie” movie as part of a lifestyle brand and not just a doll that was popular decades ago, the feature has opened up beyond its target audience. Instead of catering just to fans of the doll, the marketing campaign has crafted a sense of organic, thoughtful curation of a world viewers can adapt to their own homes.

Using cleverly cut trailers that play off Barbie’s legacy as a dumb blonde, and Ken (played by Ryan Gosling) as a beach himbo, the movie has succeeded in capturing both the essence of the brand, a breezy summer playfulness and a knowing sass from the writing style of screenwriters Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. It’s modernizing “Barbie” for a new generation without making it look like a shameless gimmick. It’s in on the criticism — and subverting it.

The seeds of all this started back in April, when with the release of the first trailer, 24 movie posters were dropped, one for nearly all the major cast members. Soon after, an AI-generator was unleashed to put viewers into their own version of the poster. “The poster memes back in April, in particular, did a good job of breaking through the clutter to introduce the film and its aesthetic,” said brand strategist Marcus Collins.

“They are tapping into meme culture in a way that is working quite well. It reminds me of ‘M3GAN’ on a bigger scale,” said Box Office Pro Chief Analyst Shawn Robbins.

But what sets it apart is that the movie doesn’t feel run of the mill, said an unnamed rival studio executive, and that the items are curated to appeal to a person’s life and not necessarily to slap Margot Robbie’s Barbie on every piece of merch in existence. Gerwig, an indie darling with three Oscar nominations, and the pairing with Robbie imply a sense of quality. “It looks like a huge event,” said the studio marketing insider. “And the only way you succeed theatrically these days is you have to be an event for somebody.”

Since then the marketing has emphasized itself more like a lifestyle brand, catering to those wanting to craft a feminine, highly Instagrammable luxury environment. You can dress your pets in Barbie-esque shirts, buy Barbie-themed hair products and makeup to look like her, even buy candles to give your house that dream smell.

According to brand strategist Moshe Isaacian, they’re bringing the Barbie world to anyone who identifies with the aesthetic of the world. “The way they’re going into different demographics… people like Barbie might be gamers [and others] who care about the taste, the smell, all of it. They’re just hitting on every part of bringing the brand alive,” he said.

And that often doesn’t happen with films, as only specific IPs can pull that off. “Those are not the kinds of things that one could or probably should do on a Marvel property or traditional property,” the rival studio exec said. “But I think they’ve been very smart about being intentional and specific, that what they’re putting out there feels thematically consistent and tonally consistent with the brand. It doesn’t feel like they’re reaching. It doesn’t feel like they’re just aggregating a bunch of partners whose marketing money they want to take advantage of.”

It’s a move similar to what Disney does with their Princesses line, according to Rebecca Hains, author of “The Princess Problem” and professor of media and communications at Salem State University. “They are using leverage, nostalgia and interest in the movie to create a generation of adults who will embrace Barbie as a lifestyle brand,” Hains said.

It’s also similar to what Disney does with “Star Wars”: create a world in which people want to live after seeing the movie in theaters. According to Isaacian, the deliberate places Barbie’s name is associated with is also doing a great job to get the movie in front of different genders and age groups that might have had no interest in Gerwig’s movie prior. Make a Barbie Xbox available and you can get gamers. Put Barbie and her Dreamhouse in “Architectural Digest” and you can get older homeowners.

“How can people really find a piece of Barbie that they can relate to?” becomes the question, said Isaacian. “If I were to think about how to encompass this campaign it’s just ‘this is Barbie’s world [and] we live in it.'”

Women are assumed to be the driving factor behind the success of “Barbie,” but the question is whether that’s strictly elder millennials and above who grew up with Barbie during her heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. Gerwig and Robbie’s close association with the film is definitely bringing in Gen Z-ers, according to studio insiders, and the trailer’s winking self-awareness and outrageous style brings with it a large LGBTQ following. “They’re pulling in famous faces to reclaim that sense of trust and using all kinds of nostalgia to play into what we already know and love about Barbie,” said Amanda Huddy, co-founder of Hudson Davis Communications.
But with such complete Barbie saturation, will it overshadow the movie or make people forget there’s a movie associated with it? Early tracking already has the movie making $70 million on opening weekend and several of the individuals who spoke to TheWrap believe it won’t and that it’s only helping the movie.

“The audience is 100% ready to anchor this conversation around seeing this film. I don’t think there’s any question that we are going to see a massive audience show up,” said the rival studio executive.

According to Robbins, it’s certainly going to appeal to women, who aren’t often the subject of marketing like this.

But there’s definitely cause for hesitation. “The discourse hasn’t been driven much by self reports of people saying that they wanted to see the movie, or that they were going to see the movie. Just that it exists, which can be a red flag,” said Collins.

The fact that the movie is being selectively screened, said a second unnamed studio executive at a competing studio, is also cause for concern. “It’s either not what people think it is or there is something missing from a quality point,” he said.

But even he had to agree that, again, because of the familiarity of the brand, it’s an easier sell than most movies face. “This is [a] massive IP, maybe even bigger than ‘[Super] Mario.’ It’s a huge, massive global brand that’s never been exploited at the theatrical level. The campaign is great, but you’re already dealing with gold,” he said.

With an effective saturation campaign that has managed to not feel like a gimmick, Warner Bros.’ can worry less whether people will show up, but by how big a margin. If you want to live like Barbie, you gotta go big and then go home with all your accessories.