Inside the media campaign: Barbie breaks out the box (office)
Winning Media, Entertainment Gold, as well as Editor's Choice in The Drum Awards for Marketing Americas, is Hearts & Science Warner Bros with the media campaign behind Barbie. Here is the award-winning case study.
Example of winning work
Objective
We knew from the start that the Barbie movie had something for everybody, whether already a Barbie admirer or a skeptic, and we created a campaign to share our vision with the wider audience to take each and everyone of them to the box office.
Strategy
Our starting point was core fans, already thrilled since the first photo release. We needed a deeper understanding of how to best harness their passion for the movie and have them onboard as advocates to convert the non-fans, creating excitement for the release and, finally, an ongoing buzz on both ends.
While carrying a thorough analysis of our main target audience, we found that 53% of them had a love for nostalgic content. With nostalgia being a defining element in contemporary culture, this was an illuminating insight. We could leverage the fact that Barbie has been a leading player in mass consumers’ imagery for over six decades, meaning anyone from each of those generations would be able to tap into that yearning for the past.
If we could convert the joy and enthusiasm for Barbie’s plastic heritage into engagement from our main target audience, we could also inspire intrigue from non-Barbie fans, igniting unprecedented levels of excitement to drive viewers to the cinemas and make Barbie movie the defining pop-culture moment of the year.
Execution
We used a tactical approach, developing a multi-channel strategy to engage different audiences across their favorite mainstream platforms. These included a fully-explorable 3D Barbie Dreamhouse on Pinterest, taking over Amazon with a custom Alexa Barbie theme, a special integration on The Bachelorette with a Barbie-themed group date, and a first-ever collaboration with Roku, launching a Barbieland version of the Roku City screensaver and topping it up with a 24-hour themed takeover of the Roku Home Screen.
Results
Barbie movie inspired us to truly think out of the box and take the world to the box office.
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