Barbie Marketing – On A Budget

Key Takeaways

well it's official the Barbie movie crushed any and all box office expectations bringing in 337 million dollars globally on opening weekend but do not be fooled this was not just a lucky break it was the result of a well-executed marketing plan and an impressive pre-launch awareness campaign that generated serious hype we're talking about Billboards in Times Square a real-life Malibu dream house for rent on Airbnb tons of big name brand collaborations Barbie selfie generators that went viral on social media months before the movie's release a tick tock filter that turns you into a real-life Barbie a fully interactive Barbie cafe and life-size Barbie outfits that Margot Robbie wore on tour leading up to the movie's release yeah just to name a few one thing is for sure Barbie's marketing campaign was flawlessly executed and there is a lot and I mean a lot that we can learn as copywriters marketers and business owners from studying this movie's outstanding pre-launch strategy but the real question is because I know you're wondering how can the average business owner with a tiny marketing budget build hype like this well that is exactly what we're going to be talking about today Barbie marketing on a budget keep watching [Music] hey Posse what's up it's Alex and yes you knew this one was coming you knew I couldn't let Barbie's cinematic debut Pass Me By without breaking down all of the genius marketing behind it right here on my channel now I am sure that like me Barbie is all you've been seeing and hearing about for months now and that hype has been even more Amplified in the last week or so since the movie came out marketing gurus everywhere are celebrating Mattel and Warner Brothers for pulling off a marketing campaign for the ages and while they aren't revealing their marketing budget you can be pretty certain that it was massive like huge but the coolest thing about the marketing strategies that Barbie used is that they're actually pretty simple and you can use them too on a smaller scale obviously but every single thing that the Barbie movie did in its marketing campaigns is something that you can replicate in your own business if you get creative so I did what I do best and studied every single aspect of Barbie's marketing and identified AI foundational strategies that contributed massively to its success and I broke them down for you into simple steps that you can realistically follow with little to no marketing budget but before we get too far down the pink Barbie marketing rabbit hole if you're new to the crew welcome right here on my channel you'll find hundreds of videos and in-depth tutorial teaching you everything from marketing copywriting branding and so much more so if you're into that you know what to do go ahead and hit subscribe below and don't forget to ring that Bell to be notified when my next video goes live now Barbie marketing on a budget let's get into it starting with the first and maybe the most obvious thing that this launch did so so well number one a unique brand experience every single thing from every single collab to the AI filter to the real life Barbie cafe was executed flawlessly with the Barbie brand experience in mind there was nothing you saw that was promoting the Barbie movie that didn't feel like oh my God this is so Barbie everything felt really authentic and unique and really true to the Barbie brand which is key to replicating this level of hype and loyalty for your own business or brand if there was anything put out in this campaign that wasn't aligned our BS meters would have gone off immediately and you can bet that people would have been turned off right away or would have known it was an imposter and brands unknowingly do this all the time they promote an affiliate offer that feels totally off brand just to make some extra cash or they speak on a podcast that has zero alignment with their brand Mission just for the sake of exposure and a million other seemingly small or harmless compromises that a brand makes in an attempt to grow but it's actually doing them a massive disservice there is a better way to attract your ideal audience and grow your business which is to create a consistent brand experience that is uniquely you you want every single touch point of your brand from what you post on social media to the emails you send to the way you ask a person to buy to be dripping with your brand personality that it honestly feels like a no-brainer for the right people to stick around but how exactly do you create a brand experience as Stellar as the Barbie one without buying a mansion in Malibu well the very first thing you need to to do is stop trying to fit yourself into the standard box of what you think you should be doing Brands just like people are multifaceted with different layers quirks likes dislikes preferences so on and so forth so what you need to do is sit down and get crystal clear on exactly who your brand is if your brand was literally a person who would they be how would they dress how would they speak an example of another brand that does this so so well is someone that I love to follow Queen Herbie so she's an artist who creates music but she understands the power of creating a brand experience for her fans so she doesn't just post about her music in fact I didn't even realize she was a musician when I started following her she doesn't keep herself in that box of I make music so go listen to my music and that's all she posts about right she lets her audience into her world she's quirky she's colorful she's funny she's sarcastic and she's a little woo-woo and she has built her brand to mirror these characteristics which in turn has created a super loyal audience who loves her music and they also just really love her and love her brand something that she does all the time and I freaking love these are so funny our Aura cleanse videos on Instagram and at first glance this is absolutely nothing to do with her music or getting more people to listen to her music on Spotify but her fans absolutely love this and engage with it so much that it's now a regular feature of her brand experience so when thinking about your marketing strategy the first thing you need to do is stop doing what everyone else is doing and get clear on your unique brand experience and you really should crystallize this before you do absolutely anything else luckily I have an entire program to help you through this process of creating your brand voice and strategy and I'll link to that in the description box below alright now the next thing that Barbie marketing did so so well is number two consistent visual branding okay so we just talked about creating a unique brand experience which has to do with personality and the voice of your brand but what about the visual branding like brand colors logos and fonts yep you better believe that Barbie did this better than any brand I have ever seen I mean hello and what other reality do you see a color and immediately think of of a brand in fact Barbie pink even has its own signature Pantone shade pms219c so naturally when it came to their marketing strategy pink was everywhere Barbie marketing was not one bit afraid of making everything and anything boldly stand out with their signature pink color and Barbie logo I mean they literally put Barbie pink sauce on a burger how's that for extreme and it is totally genius in fact Google searches for the term Barbie pink have skyrocketed in the last month and I went and checked myself on Google Trends yet most brands are terrified of being this bold with their branding they're scared that they'll turn people off but the ironic thing is that being bold is exactly what draws people to you makes you recognizable and of course makes you memorable in fact let's play a little game I love this can you guess these Brands based on their color palette only did you get them I'll reveal what the brands are at the end of this video and we will see how many you got right now I'm sure some of them you guessed immediately like that Tiffany blue is undeniable you want your brand to be recognizable just like that to your audience even if the logo is not present so that means you need to be consistent with the visuals you are putting out there use the same colors on your website your Instagram your LinkedIn and so on and now I'm not saying that you should just pick some crazy colors for the sake of standing out you want your colors to be cohesive with your brand experience so pick colors logo fonts that make sense with your Brand's personality alright next up we're moving into sort of a three in one tip collaborations PR and user generated content I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world the marketing team worked overtime to make Barbie world a reality with well over 100 brand collaborations press coverage on all the big magazines and TV shows and tons and I mean tons of user generated content Barbie world was literally taking over the real world now you're probably thinking yeah cool Alex but my little startup could never get brand collaborations like this or I will never be interviewed on Good Morning America okay that's totally fair I get it but what you can do is take note and replicate that Concept in a way that works for you and here's how you do that find brands of a similar size same target audience and brands that have complementary products and services and then team up to cross promote each other this strategy was a win-win for the Barbie movie and all of the brands that jumped on the Barbie train and it can be a win-win for you and the brands that you partner with as well just remember what we talked about earlier you never want to sacrifice the Integrity of your brand experience just for a collaboration opportunity a good brand collaboration will make sense with your brand experience like a swimsuit brand collabing with a sunscreen brand for example I guarantee that if you sit down and made a list of all the brands or niches that are directly tied to what you do but not in direct competition you will come up with so many so start reaching out to those Brands get conversations going and just see what happens and when it comes to PR you don't need to be Vanity Fair or La weekly in order for PR to make a splash in your marketing efforts PR can mean being interviewed on someone else's podcast or maybe doing a guest blog post on someone else's blog or taking over someone's Social Media for a day all of these strategies are great PR opportunities that literally any brand of any size can do starting now and another thing we have to mention with this one is ugc or user generated content this is when fans or consumers are posting about your brand product or service on their own social platforms this is basically free advertising for your brand but not just any kind of free advertising the most effective kind because your customers are talking about you Barbie marketing was heavily promoted with user generated content remember this so what you can learn from this is the power of creating something fun and shareable not everything you put into a marketing campaign needs to be focused on selling something remember eyeballs have a ton of value there's a lot to be said about Simply Having Fun or sharing super useful and relevant information so create a fun filter make a quiz design a contest consider what's trending now and then how can you jump on that Trend in a way that's unique and relevant to your brand and when people do share about your brand or tag you make sure to re-share it feature them on your website social media or in your emails with permission of course take full advantage of ugc whenever you can alright now moving on to number four know your audience to a t I'll be honest when I first heard of the Barbie movie I assumed it would be a movie for kids kind of like The Lego Movie I thought kids toy kids movie it makes sense right no something this movie Campaign did so freaking well was speak to their ideal audience and hello it was me they were not targeting little girls who play with Barbies right now they were targeting Millennials and gen Z's who grew up with the Barbie brand and with Barbie toys this made a huge difference in the messaging and overall marketing efforts and this is why you notice that there's so much adult humor in the movie even though it's still rated PG-13 it's why so many of the marketing events were geared towards adults and it's why so many of the brand collab operations where with brands that 20 and 30 something year olds would be interested in they weren't trying to appeal to everyone and that's why the campaign was such a huge success literally they made me someone who had no intention of seeing the movie because I didn't think it was for me booking tickets to go see it in theater the week of its release I legit cannot remember the last time I did that I'm wearing more pink now my nails were even pink last week what is happening so while the strategy is literally the foundation of all great marketing it Bears repeating knowing exactly who your target audience is what they want where they hang out what they like what they dislike what they want to hear cannot be underestimated if you need help figuring out who your target audience is I can help you I have a free customer Avatar worksheet and I will link to that for you below alright now on to the fifth and final lesson that you can take from Barbie's brilliant marketing campaign number five play the long game if you remember anything from this video let it be this playing the long game is the best marketing strategy of them all being consistent and patient with your Market and content efforts is the thing that most brands completely skip or ignore today look I get it everyone wants the Silver Bullet the overnight success but sorry that doesn't exist not even for Barbie something the Barbie movie did so so well was that they built anticipation slowly and over time in fact Mattel first announced that Barbie movie was coming and that Margot Robbie was playing Barbie in 2019. that was four years before the movie was released and the first look of Margot Robbie decked out as Barbie was released in early 2022 followed by a reveal of the entire cast then the first trailer then the second trailer a main trailer and on and on and on they trickled out more and more Barbie content without ever revealing too much at once which is absolutely genius they didn't release one big trailer a year before the premiere and hoped people would be excited enough to go see it when it came to the theaters they stayed front and center in our minds for four freaking years picking up momentum and traction over time and by the time the movie was eight months from being released the Barbie hype was so big that it literally took on a mind of its own and this did not happen by accident and it certainly was not an overnight success in fact Warner Brothers president of Global Marketing Josh Goldstein said in an interview about the Barbie marketing strategy we saw it as a breadcrumb strategy where we gave people little elements of the movie to stimulate curiosity and that created conversation genius this is a concept that literally every single brand of big or small can replicate right now starting today never underestimate how much impact you have simply by investing time and effort into showing up consistently and keeping your brand and messaging at the Forefront leading up to a launch so this is what I call priming and I do it for months before every single launch and here's how you can do it too at least three to six months before your launch date you should be one generating curiosity and excitement about your upcoming launch two educating your audience about your product and service and three sharing benefits to build design hire and create that Curiosity Gap to start conversations do this and you'll generate more hype anticipation and sales I hope you had fun breaking down Barbie Mania with me now to go back to that fun game that we referenced earlier I will pop up the brands right now on the screen how many of them did you get right I know I only got a few when I first saw them but it really goes to show the power of using color and a consistent visual experience in your branding give me a thumbs up below if you found this video helpful and I will see you next week with a brand new video Until Then I'm Alex ciao for now all right guys if you enjoyed that video make sure to check out the next one from me right here and you can click right here to get a free gift people hear the word publicity they think oh that's something for like internet Superstars or when I have a book coming out or I've reached a certain five natural Milestone um but publicity is all about getting your ideas your message your products your services out on other people's platforms um so this could look like traditional media like being featured in magazines TV and newspapers to what I call the New Media like being interviewed on an entrepreneur's podcast being a guest expert in their program doing an igtv interview maybe them sharing their work with their audience over email but it's all about getting your work onto other people's platforms