Everyone’s talking about the Barbie Movie’s marketing budget, but what about PR?

Crossing the $537 million mark as of August 15, Barbie has become the highest-grossing domestic movie in Warner Bros. Discovery’s 100-year history, surpassing Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” which generated $536 million in 2008 for the title. Poised to crack more than $1.3 billion at the global box office, one thing’s for sure – there’s no escaping the Barbie-core movement that’s sweeping the globe, leaving millions with major FOMO thanks to the movie’s $150 million mega promotional campaigns. 

Unless you’ve been completely off the ‘Barbie movement’ grid, or in an alternate universe where everything is made up of one colour and people walk around on tiptoes, you’ve most likely noticed the extensive promotion for the new Barbie movie literally everywhere. With numerous brand partnerships, pop-ups, endless merchandising and bright pink billboards, the marketing and PR around the movie have been iconically pink, appealing to the nostalgia of every person who ever saw Barbie in a box and longed to see her life play out. It’s pretty genius if you ask me. 

While we don’t typically have Hollywood-sized budgets to light up the Burj Khalifa every time a client launches a new product or campaign, there are definitely a lot of takeaways from the Barbie movie launch. Hear me out. 

Maintaining and leveraging brand identity: If you see pink, you think Barbie and vice versa – this is the essence of maintaining a strong brand identity. Over the decades, Barbie’s iconic pink colour and the instantly-recognisable logo have contributed to its enduring popularity, creating instant recognition and association with the brand until today. This has been cleverly capitalised on by Barbie’s PR and marketing teams who painted the whole world pink, inviting everyone across the globe to jump on the pink wagon. In fact, wearing pink was only one of many ways consumers acknowledged their connection to the movie. I went to see the movie a few days ago, and all I could see was people in all shades of pink queuing in anticipation. Thanks to the almost-obvious yet extremely thoughtful use of the brand’s identity, the Barbie movie fixation was amplified worldwide. 

Impactful partnerships

Established and emerging brands also raced to put their own spin on the Barbie phenomenon, becoming an impactful medium to further disperse Barbie mania. The extensive list of impressive collaborations spanned fashion, beauty, tech, and food industries to mention a few, with brands such as Aldo, NYX, LUSH Cosmetics and Pinkberry launching exclusive collections of shoes, cosmetics and Berry Pink frozen yoghurt to embrace the essence of the Barbie brand. Even companies that might seem outside the doll’s niche target have come forward to offer their spin on Barbieland. XBOX for instance created a custom-built Barbie DreamHouse game console Series X, complete with custom controller faceplates inspired by Barbie and Ken’s on-screen outfits. On the other hand, Airbnb worked hand in hand with the Barbie team to unveil Barbie’s iconic Malibu DreamHouse. Such partnerships, although falling under the marketing umbrella, can have an outstanding impact from a PR perspective, facilitating mutually-beneficial opportunities and allowing both brands to expand their reach and presence. At Atteline, strategic partnerships are a tool we adopt and implement day in and day out, working relentlessly to provide brands we represent with opportunities to expand their universe through meaningful and brand-aligned collaborations. 

Engaging with the everyday Barbie and Ken through AI 

As the Barbie excitement surged, so did online chatter, amplifying Barbie-mania even further. Making the most out of this user-generated content (UGC) and AI tools played a pivotal role in Barbie’s PR success. Going viral with 13M users ahead of the movie’s debut, Barbie’s AI selfie-generator allowed fans to share photos of themselves on the Barbie movie poster. Then, of course, the internet did what the internet does, flood our feeds with “This Barbie is ….” memes as a result. In addition to that, social media filters on Instagram and TikTok allowing users to transform themselves into Barbie-style avatars further fed into the social media hype around the movie. The #barbiecore hashtag on TikTok alone has received a collective 581 million views and counting. Clever, eh? Well, there’s nothing complicated here. The key is to simply understand your audience, and what would appeal to people on a larger scale; in this instance, it’s the love of memes. It’s very crucial for marketers and PR professionals to harness the power of generative AI, utilising its boundless potential to create captivating and personalised experiences through innovative storytelling and unimaginable audience engagement.

Storytelling done right 

We sometimes fall into the habit of promoting our brands’ products or services, overlooking (unintentionally) the importance of impactful storytelling. Barbie’s storytelling tugged at the heartstrings, narrating Barbie’s journey, dreams and adventures. This narrative approach, focusing on Barbie’s journey of self-discovery, created an emotional resonance with the audience, who then felt more invested in the movie and its story. It’s important always to remember that a brand’s story humanises its identity, allowing customers to invest not just in its products or service, but in the essence of the brand itself.

Think about it, with a film as iconic as the Barbie movie, the release was always going to generate impressive coverage. The brand’s marketing and PR teams could have relied on that assurance, and let the film speak for itself. However, they’ve gone above and beyond, working not just harder, but smarter whilst leaning onto the brand’s decades-old legacy. In an interview with Variety, Warner Bros. President of Global Marketing, Josh Goldstine, said that the only reason people thought fortunes were spent on the Barbie marketing campaign was because it’s so ubiquitous. “Because it pierced the zeitgeist, it had the impression that we spent so much. In fact, we actually spent responsibly”, he said. 

The scale of Barbie’s marketing and PR efforts has gone beyond promoting a press release. It has turned Barbie into a lifestyle brand, connecting with people and their passions across fashion, food, travel, music and beyond, thus dominating pop culture with remarkable success. Let’s take a page out of Barbie’s book and think about how to apply these lessons to our own strategies. After all, if this Barbie is everything, it’s marketing and PR that made that happen, right?

 

 

Words By: Hanine El Massri, Senior Account Manager at Atteline