Apr 17, 20235 min read

Case Study

Barbie, the new live-action movie, has a bold approach with its marketing campaign and advertisement on social media.

What is this movie?

Barbie, a new film that will hit theaters on July 21, 2023, is directed by Greta Gerwig and has a star-studded cast, including famous actress Margot Robbie, who plays Barbie, and Ryan Gosling, who plays Ken. Based on the synopsis, it seems that Barbie goes to the real world, after being forced to leave the world that Barbie lives in due to not being perfect, and is tasked with the realization that she needs to save Barbieland. A key takeaway from this film is that “happiness is the belief in oneself”, according to Movie Insider (Renner, 2023).

Marketing Campaign

It is without a doubt that the live-action, Barbie The Movie, film is not shy when it comes to bold strategic marketing tactics to promote the movie. This film has relied on unique techniques and social media to spread the word. The campaign uses a variety of digital and standard marketing techniques, including the use of formal advertisement to the use of influencers on social media. From a heavy reliance on Instagram and TikTok to the selfie generator, it seems to be a hit among their following.

Online Campaign

Barbie Selfie Generator

The most prominent and successful marketing tactic is the use of the Barbie selfie generator. This campaign allowed users to directly interact with the movie itself. It gave users and fans the ability to put themselves into the movie poster, which allowed people to become a part of Barbieland, and to share their creations on social media. Users of the selfie generator can create their own Barbie selfie by uploading a picture of them, creating a caption along with if they are Barbie or Ken, and choosing the color of the Barbie Mattel logo.

Movie Posters

Along with social media users the opportunity to create their own Barbie selfie, it is also giving the movie the chance to give the general public to advertise on their own, without having to create paid content, due to the fact that it lists the film name and the date that it will hit theaters. Like the Smile movie campaign, the marketing is able to speak for itself and create more movie goers interested in seeing this film. As referenced by HubSpot, the user-generated content created from the AI-generated memes "plays an important element of nostalgia for those who played with Barbie dolls as a child" (Alfred, 2023).

The Barbie Selfie Generator was able to create a buzz and hype among the Barbie fandom and Gen Z users of social media due to the fact that it allowed everyone to feel unique when creating their content. With this opportunity, it is a quick, easy, and entertaining way for people to create their ideal Barbie advertisement. Also, due to it being engaging among its users, it was able to leverage the idea of trends that were popular among different social media apps at the time, which allowed it to become highly shareable. The selfie generator was able to create a peak of interest among different communities on social media and allow a sense of self-expression, through the customization options that are available to pick from.

# BarbieSelfie

Along with the booming popularity of the Barbie Selfie Generator, the movement of #BarbieSelfie was created on various platforms. This hashtag was popular on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter because it was an easy way for social media users to share the selfies that they had created through the generator to publish for their friends and others to see. Using the selfie hashtag allowed user-generated content to be created and uploaded by people of all different backgrounds, which helps promote a positive sense of inclusion and diversity when the film is being publicized. This hashtag has since caused thousands of fans to share their posts under this common hashtag in order to create more hype for the upcoming summer film.

Social Media Presence

The Barbie movie is currently active with various social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok.

Instagram

Currently, the @barbietheMovie Instagram account is active with 353K followers. While the account is a secondary account for the Barbie brand, it is primarily used to only post content that relates to any type of advertisement for the movie. So, as content is released to the public, it will be posted directly on the Instagram account.

Also, the main Barbie Instagram account has been shown to interact and collaborate with the movie's Instagram account, in order to redirect more users to view the proper promotions of the movie. This is a huge benefit to the Instagram account due to the fact that @Barbie is able to post content to 2.4 million followers.

TikTok

TikTok has been another way that Barbie has been advertised to a targeted audience because of how widespread UGC can reach people. With 196.7K followers on @barbiethemovie, it once again allows the fans to directly interact with the content that is being placed on the platforms, such as commenting on the trailers and liking the video. Stitches and reposts that are made by TikTok users and influencers are an easy way for the movie to gain even more popularity than it already has been getting.

On the official @barbie account, they have been using it to promote a pop-up experience that gives people the opportunity to find in-person advertisements. It shows off merchandise that is created for the movie, numerous photo op opportunities, virtual looks, and different food choices. While this is not directly tied to the movie, it gives fans and on-goers all the more to look forward to when the movie comes out in July.

Was it a success?

Over the past couple of weeks, the marketing campaign for the new live-action Barbie movie has created a wide outreach of unique advertisement techniques and an effective social media campaign that hundreds of thousands of people have seen or interacted with. By using the large fanbase that Barbie already had, it allowed for easy marketing to be generated, which only hyped up the movie even more. With the idea of the Barbie Selfie Generator and #barbieselfie social media campaigns, it made a large success in the marketing for the movie due to the creativity and innovativeness that created a great deal of user-generated content worldwide. Those techniques that were used to promote the film just go to show how the world is evolving and how important it is to incorporate more of an online presence when advertising products or movies to the general public. Only time will tell if the overall marketing campaign worked with crowd levels when the movie hits theaters.

References

Alfred, L. (2023, April 11). The meme-ification of Barbie. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved

April 18, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/barbie-movie-

marketing

Dominick, N. (2023). Barbie Movie Poster. BuzzFeed. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from

https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/barbie-greta-gerwig-characters-

revealed-posters.

Dominick, N. (2023). Ken Movie Poster. BuzzFeed. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from