This was initially an ​Instagram post​ but then decided that you, my email friends, should get a deeper dive. If you saw the IG post, you should still keep reading…

This is the summer the Barbie brand came back, took over, and gave us a brilliant lesson in branding and marketing.

What I love about branding is that it gives every brand an equal chance to connect and convert their respective audiences.

That’s why I always observe, dissect, and share principles these big brands use in their flawlessly executed marketing campaigns — which you can apply at your own scale.

Let’s take a closer look at what Barbie’s team did!

1/ CULTURE

Being in a very sensitive and particular time culturally, positioning the Barbie movie (and in association, the whole brand) in alignment with where culture is at right now was their first brilliant move.

They made it all about Barbie and about self-realization. They didn’t try to sell us a cheesy Barbie/Ken love story, instead, they tackled topics that matter to people right now: personal growth, purpose, breaking out of old molds.

They embraced the culture and made the brand have much more substance than just a classic doll brand.

This campaign was about Barbie, her world, and her evolution — people can get behind that.

2/ COLLABORATIONS

Don’t sleep on brand collaboration! They didn’t!

“The Barbie movie marketing team deserves a raise!” You might have seen this phrase floating around the internet because it’s true. The team went heavily on brand collaborations and it paid off.

Why brag about your product alone when you could have your brand friends say it with you?

These collaborations had a major positive outcome for brand visibility. It made it feel very relevant and very present with all these collaborations popping up everywhere almost all at once.

You couldn’t avoid a Barbie something everywhere. It even inspired other brands, small and big, to launch Barbie-inspired collections — unofficial brand collabs of sorts.

These obvious and not-so-obvious collaborations (Barbie Dreamhouse × Airbnb or Barbie luggage x Beis) created a wave of buzz, strategically placing the brand in front of unreachable audiences for them.

3/ COUTURE

Aesthetics always catch the eye but better yet they can move the heart, and that’s what they went for and did so well with the movie tour.

The fashion undeniably was one of the most effective ways the Barbie team pulled on our heartstrings.

They didn’t just style Margot Robbie to look like Barbie during the movie promotion tour, they added an extra level of nostalgia.

It became more than fashion. It became storytelling, which created anticipation — “Which classic Barbie look are they going to recreate next?” This gets people emotionally involved as it invites them to be a part of the story and connect to their own experience with owning Barbies as a child.

They used couture/fashion to communicate that the Barbie brand was to be celebrated and adored then and is to be celebrated and adored still now.

They created an emotional link for their audience between what they felt before to how they could feel now — and it worked. Any past or lost fan got reeled back in and engaged once again in the Barbie world.

4/ COMMITMENT

The power of stories is that they are emotional vehicles but also, and even more strategically, they are repeatable, beautifully packaged messages.

If only you can consistently commit to telling the same story, you can maximize your believable factor.

Talking about the tour, they suspected it would be short with the union strike so they maximized and concentrated their efforts – they never stopped telling the story, and Margot never broke out of character.

Whether she was on the red carpet, in an interview, or walking through the airport, she was always Barbie. They styled and accessorized her as Barbie everywhere she showed up.

It made the story more powerful because they committed to the brand and stayed consistent in telling it.

So yes, the ‘life in plastic’ brand did a tour de force and it was delightful and fascinating to watch and learn.

None of us could keep our eyes off — now you know some of the branding/marketing reasons why.