How the Barbie movie perfected their marketing

Whether you want to watch the movie or not, there's no hiding from the Barbie hype at the minute. Join us as we look into how the Barbie movie perfected its marketing.
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Reece

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There’s a reason why the Barbie movie has become the most anticipated film of the year, and no, it’s not fully down to Margot Robbie or Ryan Gosling.

If there’s one thing you can guarantee about the whole production, it’s that the marketing for the movie was impeccable. From the initial hype to the branding, there wasn’t a single aspect that was overlooked.

We thought we’d take a look at some of the elements that made the marketing campaign so perfect!

Branding

It doesn’t take a genius to say that branding is a crucial aspect of a strong marketing campaign. But it can be tricky to absolutely nail your branding and the Barbie movie has done just that.

One of the strongest parts of a company’s brand is its colour, think Coca-Cola’s red, Cadbury’s purple or easyJet’s orange. Barbie’s pink is so iconic, it even has its own Pantone colour – 219.

From the movie’s posters on billboards to Barbie’s house on YouTube, the colour pink is present in every form of marketing.

It’s so strong that a blank billboard with only the colour and date on it meant people knew exactly what it was advertising.

Taking Over

No matter what social media platform you’re on, there’s bound to be some form of Barbie content being shown to you.

That could be a sponsored advert, photos from the movie’s premiere or people sharing their favourite form of Barbie marketing.

A personal favourite of ours here at ads creative solutions was when the premiere came to London. Their team had the clever idea of renaming well-known London Underground stations.

Introducing the new look Barbie-can…

Collaboration

Sometimes the power of branding can come through a joint effort and the Barbie marketing team has certainly been leaning on other brands for support.

Almost any product you can think of has been Barbie-fied, with so many businesses jumping on the hype in the build-up to the movie’s official launch.

Brands across the globe have been creatively playing with rebranding, producing special collections or new lines in support of the movie.

It’s almost as if the marketing team at Barbie set their sights on a goal that would transform the real world into Barbie’s world. Almost flipping the plot of the movie where Barbie enters the “real world”.

There are so many everyday products that have been transformed or branded in Barbie’s lifestyle, logo or shade of pink.

Below are a handful of brands that have collaborated with Barbie:

Burger King X Barbie
Airbnb X Barbie
Forza Horizon X Barbie
Uno X Barbie

And so many more brands…

In conclusion

Hats off to the marketing team at Barbie, we can’t think of any other recent movie that has received this kind of hype and build-up. Here’s to hoping it lives up to the anticipation!

Will you be watching the new Barbie movie?