Barbie marketing

By now you’ve probably seen some form of marketing for the Barbie movie, or at least heard someone mention it in conversation. How could you not? It’s estimated that the total marketing expenditure for the campaign was $150 million, more than the movie cost to make.

Sure, the budget is big, but Warner Bros isn’t just dumping money into ads. The Barbie marketing team used a wide variety of unique, out-of-the-box marketing tactics including everything from brand partnerships to a Barbie-themed Airbnb in Malibu and much much more. The result? The marketing has now gone so mainstream that talking about it has become an internet inside joke, with a slew of people on social media posting photos of just about anything pink (think sunsets, random buildings) congratulating their marketing team on a job well done. 

With the movie earning $155 million in the US  and another $182 million internationally through its opening weekend, it’s safe to say that the marketing was a success. In this blog, I’ll break down exactly what they did to achieve these results and how their unique strategy led to the creation of “the Barbie effect.”