Six marketing principles from the Barbie Movie if your budget doesn’t extend to hiring Margot Robbie

Marketing Meetup Podcast

The Barbie marketing team have been doing a BRILLIANT job.

Pink billboard ads. Shots of the dream house the team built in Malibu. Behind-the-scenes tours with Margot Robbie and more. The team behind advertising the new Barbie Movie have been doing a BIG job, gathering their efforts behind the Barbie film, to be released on July 21st.

The attention feels impressive. Barbie had been struggling to remain relevant for quite a while. From her peak in the 90s as the unchallenged queen of the dollhouse, Barbie’s sales saw a sharp drop in the following decades – eight successive quarters of decline was reported in 2015.

Yet by 2021, the brand posted record sales of $1.7 Billion for Mattel. While 2023 started with “profits and revenue had fallen short of forecasts” it feels like momentum is gathering behind the film on social media, at the very least.

But I can’t help shake the feeling that building an entire house and having Margot Robbie showing the internet around it isn’t available to most marketers.

So, here are six principles we can take from Barbie, but applying them in a world that feels a bit closer and available to the rest of us...