Pink miracle: how the creators of "Barbie" turned one of the most successful promotional campaigns of recent times

A cultural phenomenon

On July 20, the film "Barbie" directed by Greta Gerwig was released in Ukrainian cinemas. The fantasy comedy about how a doll leaves Barbieland for the real world became popular even before its release. The picture, which is interpreted both as a manifesto of feminism and as a story about life and death, had a very practical purpose. Back in 2014, "Barbie" was conceived as a marketing campaign for the doll's maker, Mattel — the very one that was ultimately mocked in the film. Take Marvel as a model, which went from a comic book publisher on the verge of bankruptcy to being acquired by Disney.

Oscar-nominated director of Ladybird and Little Women, Gerwig has signed a deal with Mattel in 2021. Her personal brand played a big role in promoting the picture: even before the premiere, everyone knew that Gerwig would shoot something extraordinary.

And it seems to have worked. After two weeks on the big screen, "Barbie" earned more than $774 and became the third most popular Hollywood film of 2023. Mattel's sales rose after a sharp downturn during the pandemic. Stifel Financial Corp analyst Drew Crum estimates that the Barbie movie will bring Mattel about $100 million in revenue. But even before those numbers came in, it was clear that the film had managed to become a cultural phenomenon thanks to effective marketing that went beyond traditional movie advertising.

There was a lot of pink…

Instead of single-handedly promoting the upcoming film in the media, the film's team made its promo its info drive. On the official pages of the film in social networks and on the website, communicators actively interacted with the audience, posting exclusive content (1.7 million users subscribed to the film's page on Instagram alone). The selfie generator based on the PhotoRoom application, where you could insert your face on a poster with Barbie, also became a meme generator: it was substituted, for example, with the face of the philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Mattel has signed cooperation agreements with more than 100 brands: from Airbnb to Maserati, which created a limited series of cars in pink color; from toothpaste to the insurance company Progressive, which shot commercials on set.

The creators of the film put the most on the performer of the main role, Margot Robbie. During the promotional tour, the actress appeared on red carpets in a stylized outfit. In Sydney, Robbie wore a Hervé Léger striped bodycon dress that resembled the bathing suit of the first Barbie doll from 1959, and for the photo shoot in Hollywood, a pink polka dot Valentino dress that resembled the doll's 1993 model.

There was so much pink this summer that Mattel had enough to put up a billboard in the US in Pantone 219C pink, with nothing but the release date written on it, and everyone knew what they were talking about. But despite the solid pink, sometimes the promotional campaign was much more subtle than it seems at first glance.

As The Guardian journalist Lois Beckett pointed out, Baby's promo broke the mold. The first teaser of the tape copied the introduction to the film "2021: A Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick and was in no way related to the image of the doll in pink. The main message was this: you don't have to like Barbie to watch this picture. “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you," reads one of the film's taglines.

Summer blockbuster

The high-profile premiere of "Barbie", filmed by the studio Warner Bros., is one of the few examples when the main competitor only fueled interest in the product. Universal released Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer on the same day as Barbie. The simultaneous appearance on the screens of such dissimilar pictures became the reason for many memes. But Nolan was not happy about this move. Rumor has it that this was a deliberate move by Warner Bros., with whom the director had a bad experience working with.

In addition, a picture about the production of nuclear weapons had limited potential for jokes, unlike "Barbie". So, the Japanese representative office of Warner Bros. criticized the head office of the company, which encouraged followers to make memes about Barbingheimer on social networks. However, "Oppenheimer" still earned $400 million and has already surpassed the income of Nolan's two previous films, "Tenet" and "Batman: The Beginning".

The fact that Barbie came out in the summer also makes sense. Such pictures - long-awaited high-budget films, which are released in the midst of the summer season - are called summer blockbusters. Usually there are one or two high-profile premieres in the summer. "Most premieres take place in autumn and winter, when major film festivals are held, or around Christmas or closer to the Oscars." And the season from May to September is vacation time," explains film critic Ihor Kromph.

But in 1975, Steven Spielberg's Jaws played an important role in rehabilitating the summer season. When the director created this horror film, he saw it as the perfect summer movie that would bring people back to theaters. That's how it turned out. "The longer the summer blockbuster phenomenon exists, the more features it has. For example, this is how many films about Independence Day (in the USA it is celebrated on July 4) and comedies on the resort theme appeared," adds Ihor Kromph.

Rethinking what they grew up on

Nadia Pereviznyk, organizational consultant, social psychologist and founder of Hope&Partners consulting, says that the promo turned out to be not aggressive, but massive. "The whole film is very funny. I think Ryan Gosling's Ken will become as recognizable as Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Wolf of Wall Street or Robert Downey Jr.'s eye-rolling.

To promote the film, a high-profile press tour and backstage campaign was held, which was highlighted by the team, collaborations with both budget and premium brands. Such creative and omnichannel marketing (that is, one that involves several intermediaries to interact with the viewer) has produced results. Crazy popularity is a reaction to the fact that the world is becoming more and more unpredictable and scary. People want to plunge into childhood, although in "Barbie" only the wrapper is pink, and the picture itself is a reinterpretation of everything we grew up with.

But for Mattel, this is just the beginning. The company has already announced 45 new projects dedicated to their toys - from a new adaptation of the animated action film "Lords of the Universe" to a cartoon about Barney the dinosaur.