Brand Revival: In the Barbie World.
Photo: Warner Bros.
What’s going on?
Mattel unveiled their brand revitalization playbook and unboxed their iconic toy in the highly anticipated movie, “Barbie."
Directed by Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) with a star-studded cast and soundtrack – featuring (of course) a remix of Aqua’s 1990s hit, “Barbie Girl” – Mattel, Inc. and Warner Bros. Pictures’ movie has received massive build-up on social media for months now. But viewers expecting only to see Barbie living a perfect life will have their bubbles burst, as she ventures beyond the plush pearly gates of Barbie Land to discover the not-so-perfect truths about the real world.
Ahead of theaters rolling out their pink carpets, a full-on bubblegum marketing blitz has been in effect:
Warner Bros. and Mattel marketing teams launched a series of digital assets, including a selfie generator.
A Barbie Xbox Series S console and controllers are up for grabs as part of an international sweepstakes.
A long list of collaborations exists outside of the toy category, including homeware (Ruggable), fashion (Gap) and beauty (Revlon) companies.
What's The Squeeze?
We’re all in Barbie’s World, and Mattel has strategically made sure of it with a brand resurgence worth recognizing.
After Barbie’s historic reputation of promoting unrealistic beauty standards and discriminatory representations, the 64-year-old brand was deemed irrelevant after record-low sales in 2015. Since then, Mattel President and COO Richard Dickson has utilized his ‘Mattel Playbook’ – which highlights purpose as “the most important element of any brand” – to give Barbie the ultimate makeover.
As Mattel’s corporate website now says, “Since 1959, Barbie’s purpose has been to inspire the limitless potential in every girl,” a nod to the brand’s repositioning that representation matters. Over the years, Mattel’s made efforts to make the Barbie line more inclusive by introducing dolls with a broad range of skin tones, body shapes and careers. And now, the Barbie movie features multiple portrayals of Barbie and Ken that are far from resembling a carbon-copy assembly line.
Even before its release, it’s safe to say that the movie has accomplished Mattel’s mission to reposition itself from a toy manufacturer to an intellectual property company that sparks cultural conversation. Mattel is one of the hottest stocks of the past month, with shares up 15%.
As Dickson puts it: “The evolution of Barbie can be seen as a case study of how brands with legacy reinvent themselves.”
Learn more from the Mattel Playbook and how the company will revitalize its other brands in the article below.
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