What Barbie Movie Magic Can Teach Us About Launching A Business

The Barbie movie is out after what seems hearing about it forever, and it’s been just as successful as predicted. 

As a business owner, I’m fascinated with how the marketing team achieved this. So in this episode, I’m investigating what we can learn about business, more specifically about launching a business from the marketing people behind the Barbie movie success.

If you plan to launch a business and want to know how to get people interested in what you have to offer, then listen up, because you’re about to get a masterclass in inspiring people to become raving fans and customers.  

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Transcript

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Unless you've been living in a box recently, you cannot have failed to notice the explosion of all things pink and sparkly that's been suddenly been covering people, places and things around us. Yes, Barbiecore has been everywhere. The Barbie movie is out after what seems like hearing about it forever, and it's been just as successful as predicted. And no, I've not changed this podcast to do movie reviews, although that would be fun, but I am interested in how the Barbie movie went from being something for little girls and maybe some big girls who like to wear pink, to having universal appeal and a slavish following before it's even opened at the cinemas. In this episode, I'm investigating what we can learn about business, more specifically about launching a business from the marketing people from behind the Barbie movie success. If you plan to launch a business and want to know how to get people interested in what you have to offer, then listen up, because you're about to get a masterclass in inspiring people to become raving fans and customers. Ready to tap into the Barbie world to up your business marketing game? Yes? Then let's get started. Hi, I'm Nichola O'Hara, and not so long ago, I navigated my way out of a successful corporate career to launch my dream business and haven't looked back. Now, I live a life of freedom and work where, when, how, and with whom I choose. I created this podcast to teach you the strategies I learned and share the knowledge and tools I needed during my escape journey. So you can make your move out of your day job faster, smarter, and with greater ease. Think of me as your mentor, teacher, guide, and cheerleader through the highs and lows of the employed entrepreneur rollercoaster. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur feeling trapped, unappreciated, and unfulfilled in your job, and longing to break free to build a business and life you're passionate about, you're in the right place. This is the Powering Your Passion podcast. Hello and welcome to this episode. Now, I usually try and keep my podcast episode topics pretty evergreen. In other words, not related to a particular event or a time of year, and that's so they can be listened to at any time and not feel dated or irrelevant. And actually, that's something you will need to think about when you're putting out your own podcast or blog out into the world. But occasionally you get times when you want to comment on something that is happening in real time, either because it's socially important, an event or holiday that everyone can relate to, or when you notice something that can be of use to your audience. And this is one of those times. Specifically, I want to share this with you because it's a really good example of something you're going to need to get a handle on if you want to make it in the business world. I'm talking about the Barbie movie. Not because of the movie itself, but because it's been a huge marketing success and gives a lot of insight into marketing techniques you can use, on a smaller scale, of course, for your own business launch. During its first weekend in cinemas, Barbie has raked in 356 million globally at the box office, and in the first week, and in the first week hit half a billion. It's a juggernaut. Along with Oppenheimer and the Mission Impossible movie, its opening weekend became the biggest weekend of cinema in 11 years. The Warner Brothers president of global marketing, Josh Goldstein, said in an interview with Variety, I've been doing this for 35 years. This is one of the most unique experiences I've ever had. Celebrities have been decking themselves out head to foot in pink, and cinema goers have been dressing up as their favorite Barbie and have queued around the block to get a seat. Barbie merchandise is everywhere. Big brands have been falling over themselves to collaborate in some way. My personal favourite was the Airbnb Malibu Dreamhouse, where they painted this big house pink, and put all sorts of Barbie stuff around the place, and people can go and stay there. But why has this movie launch been so successful? Yes, Barbie is a well known brand. But it's had its critics over the years. There's been a bit of a love hate relationship. Who knew that it was going to have so much universal appeal? That a movie would be so popular even before it even opened. You'd be forgiven to think it was just for little girls, but people of all ages and genders and opinions about Barbie have been flocking to it. Even if it's just to see what all the fuss is about. When I first heard about the movie a few years ago, I thought there would be no way I'd actually go and see it. It would just not be my thing. Then I found myself a week or so before it opened chatting with a friend about how it's not going to be what you think and actually it could be quite fun to go and see. How had my mind gone from no way to this could be fun? I heard myself saying the words and then had to think, where had I got that from? It may seem like magic but actually my mind had been changed by a long, intricate, clever and highly invested in marketing strategy. The thing about marketing is that it's based on psychology. A great marketing campaign will bring you down a path to buying something without you even being aware of it. Slowly build liking and trust in whatever you want the person to buy. In this case, the campaign encouraged me to think about the Barbie movie. And what to expect. It made it seem cool and fresh. And when the trailers started to drop, you could see that there was a lot of adult humor and you began to think that maybe there is something different about it. Full disclosure. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I would definitely have gone to see it had I been in London. In rural France It's pretty hard to get an original version and my French is not good enough to understand when it's dubbed So I'll just have to wait until it's released by one of the streaming services to see if it lives up to my expectations But as a business owner, I've been fascinated by the buzz around it, how it's tapped into so many people's imaginations and caused so much excitement. As I'm always learning, I took a deeper look into the marketing strategy that was used to see if there was anything I, and of course you, can take away from it. And once you strip away the sparkly pink glamour, they actually use some pretty standard marketing techniques just on a huge scale with a massive budget behind it. And that's the first lesson for us. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. The tried and trusted marketing methods do work, alongside the more modern social media strategies of course. The next lesson is that you do need to invest in marketing. It's estimated that the marketing budget for Barbie was 150 million, which is just slightly more than the 145 million production budget. Although there have been endless gifs and memes on social media about the marketing team had a huge budget, this is actually a pretty standard for a blockbuster. It just shows how vital marketing is, and not just for blockbuster movies. It's equally important for startups and entrepreneurs like you and me. Just creating a great product isn't enough anymore. You've got to shout about it from the rooftops and make sure it gets the spotlight it deserves. Remember, it doesn't matter how revolutionary your product is, if no one knows about it. And the investment can be in the form of money, or time, or both. You either decide to pay someone to help you with your business marketing, or you do everything yourself, paying with your time. Or you do a bit of both, doing it yourself, but also investing in paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram, or Google. Whatever way you choose, it's not something you can ignore. Getting your marketing right is not an expense, but an investment that can lead to significant returns. Another lesson is about brand and branding. So your brand is what people think about you or your business when you're not in the room, and branding is the physical manifestation of that brand. So things like colors, the logo, fonts, and imagery you use. As I said before, Barbie has a huge brand and about 50 years of imprinting it into our psyche. Love it or hate it, you know about it. So the movie producers had a lot to work with. The logo and imagery are really distinctive, and when you think of pink, you automatically think of Barbie. Now, of course, when you start out, you are not gonna have that kind of brand or branding, but you do need to think about what you want people to think about your company and you. If you're gonna be at the forefront, then everything you say and do needs to be aligned to whatever that is. Also, you don't need to have a logo or a super complicated branding at the start. But make sure that whatever you do have is the same wherever you post about your business. So if you use a certain font on your website, use the same on your social media. If your main brand color is blue, then use that everywhere. Don't switch to purple because you feel like it that day. You want whatever you've chosen to become linked to you, just like Pink is linked to Barbie. Continuity is everything when you're dealing with your brand and branding. Now that we have the basics covered, let's look into the specific marketing tactics that the team behind the Barbie movie used. First, we're going to talk about the runway. In marketing terms, the runway is a time from you start talking about the thing you want to sell, to the time you actually put it on sale. There are certain phases of that runway to bring you from not knowing about it, to desperate to get your hands on it. In general, the longer the runway, the better, as you need time to influence people's decisions. The Barbie movie had a super long runway. They started talking about it at CinemaCon 2022, which was in April of that year. So a full 15 months before the movie was released. They just had an image of Margot Robbie as Barbie in her famous pink car. That was really a test to see the reaction and it didn't disappoint. That strategy is the initial teaser that any of us could use in our business or product launches. It's giving your potential clients a glimpse of what is coming, but giving them nothing more. What followed is what's called a breadcrumb strategy. This is where you leave a trail of enticing crumbs of information that lure people towards your product. Remember Hansel and Gretel. It's a bit like that, but hopefully with a more favorable outcome. So how did the Barbie movie do this? They didn't spill all the beans at once. Instead, they released snippets of information, sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, and teaser trailers over time. Each little crumb was designed to whet the audience's appetite and keep them coming back for more. About a month or so after CinemaCon, they were filming Barbie and Ken dressed in head to toe neon Lycra and on rollerblades on Venice Beach. The photos were'leaked' but it would have been pretty difficult not to notice them as it's hardly a private area. the first teaser trailer was put out in December 2022, but I'm going to talk more about that later. The main trailer was dropped in April 2023, and Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie were interviewed in full pink costumes at CinemaCon. From there, the intensity increased monthly, until the weeks before the opening, Barbie was everywhere. Margot and Ryan showed up everywhere as Barbie and Ken, with Margot wearing different Barbie costumes from all the decades Barbie has been around. By the time of the opening, expectation and excitement was at fever pitch and people were queuing to go and see it. The long runway, along with the techniques I'm going to talk about, gave people time. Time to catch up, time to get interested, time to change their minds, and time to really buy into the concept. So if you're planning to launch your business or your first product, think about how you could stretch out your marketing efforts. It might feel like you're playing the long game, but trust me, it'll be worth it. Give your audience enough time to sit up, take notice, and get excited. The next strategy is the one I think made a huge difference. Introducing Intrigue and Secrecy. Throughout the runway they did this. Keeping the story secret, leaking the behind the scenes footage, and giving away just enough to make it seem mysterious and not what you expect. A big part of this was to run the first teaser trailer in December 2022. before the most anticipated film of the year, which was Avatar The Shape of Water. Not really a traditional Barbie fan type of movie, but it got it in front of people who may not have seen themselves as their target audience. And it made it intriguing enough to whet their appetites and start to wonder if it could be worth seeing. It had music from 2001 A Space Odyssey in homage to the Stanley Kubrick film. And it made the bold statement that this movie isn't going to be exactly what you think it is. The trailer was totally not what you would expect from a Barbie movie, and also did not give too much away keeping the intrigue going. On top of that, they kept people on social media waiting for the trailer online, which only heightened the excitement and the expectations. And a later trailer said, If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you. What that did was intrigue even the sceptics. People who might have thought, Oh, it's just another kid's movie. They started wondering, Wait, what's different about it? And that right there is the win. It's like telling someone I've got a secret, but I can't tell you. And immediately, they're dying to know. As an entrepreneur, you can tap into this power of intrigue and secrecy. Maybe there's an unexpected feature of your business, or a unique use for your product, or a surprising backstory to your company. Whatever it is, don't tell them outright. Hint at it, and create a little mystery. Make your audience think, there's more to this than meets the eye. Remember, curiosity is a really powerful tool. If you can get people wondering about your business or product, they're more likely to check it out, and who knows, they might find it is exactly what they didn't know they needed. Another huge standout strategy for this movie was collaborations and partnerships, both for merchandise and other experiences like the AirBNB Dreamhouse and the Boston Boat Trip. According to CNN, brand strategist Moshe Isaacian started keeping track of the official partnership on Twitter. He posted about 50 partnerships with everything from toothbrushes to dog clothes. But CNN says that's just the half of it. Mattel, the makers of the Barbie doll, have made over 100 brand deals for the movie. With all that branded merchandise and partnerships, no wonder Barbie seemed to be everywhere. Now, I'm not suggesting you go out and make the kind of deals that Barbie Marketing has, but you could introduce a few branded products to send to your clients when they start working with you. Or, if you have a hospitality business, you could have gifts that you leave for your customers. I remember when I joined an online course that had hundreds of people in it. Everyone wanted the branded mug that was only sent to the first 50 people who signed up. And for another program I was in, I got a branded card signed by the coach welcoming me. Small gestures like that can really help encourage people to buy from you. Other types of partnerships can be as an affiliate. So if you're not that well known yet, you could partner up with somebody in a similar but complementary industry to yours who is willing to sell your product to their clients for a cut of the sale. Overall, partnerships were a massive part of the Barbie Movie marketing success. It's more of an advanced strategy and not relevant to all types of business, but even if you get involved in a small way, it can help you with your marketing plans for your launch. The final thing I want to talk about is how the Barbie Movie marketing strategy tapped into the need for community and shared experiences. The combined effect of all the marketing techniques I've talked about up to now, built up the launch of the movie to be a huge event. Something you just didn't want to miss out on. We all get that FOMO when someone else is doing something fun, right? Because of the hype, it was an event that groups of friends wanted to go to, that they told their friends about. It was a destination event where people dressed up and made an effort for it. It was no longer just going to see another movie, it was more than that. and A Stroke of Genius, the Barbie marketing team encouraged the link that people were making with other movies that were released on the same weekend. Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, which built into a thing where people went to see all three movies. Barbenheimer Impossible, I think they called it. Dressing up in outfits related to all three. They also launched an app where you can put your selfie onto a Barbie poster that you can then share on your social media, encouraging that collaboration and community feeling. Community and connection can be an important part of your marketing strategy. Especially in this post pandemic era, people want to feel the sense of belonging, to be seen, and having the support of a group of people. Of course, it will depend on what your business is, but introducing an element of community in whatever you do can really make a difference. The bottom line is, to launch like Barbie, you need to be prepared to invest in marketing with either time or money. Create a strong, simple, clear brand. Spend time building up interest of what you have to sell. Starting before it's even a business, plan your runway. Make it intriguing, something that people are so curious about they want to learn more. Build the excitement and be everywhere your potential clients are in the final weeks of your launch. Partner with others if your audience isn't big enough yet, and don't forget the power of community and shared experiences. Whether you're a fan of the movie or not, it has broken some records and boundaries, and will go down in history as a marketing triumph. All the strategies and the money that was invested to supersize the impact they made. Created a kind of movement, something beyond that. I think even the people at Barbie Movie Marketing could have ever envisioned it took on a life of its own. If you have a fraction of the success with your launch, using the same techniques, you'll do very well indeed So work out what your Barbie strategy is and get your business and what you do best out into the world. That's it for this time. As always, the link to the show notes is in the description for this episode on whatever platform you're listening from. Remember, you deserve to live your passion, and just like Barbie does, go for it. This is your time. Hey, so if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or Amazon so you know as soon as a new episode is released and don't miss out. And while you're there, feel free to give a rating or drop in a comment. I would love to hear from you.