It’s rare for fans to know a character as intimately as Barbie—the shape of her foot, the floor plan of her home and the trajectory of her many careers. In the era of fandom, Hollywood is obsessed with bringing IP to life. Superheroes of static comic book pages, tabletop RPG adventures and even princesses and mermaids seen previously only in animation have all been adapted into live-action features. But in transferring Barbie’s world to the big screen, “Barbie” simply adds another dimension to the brand’s storied legacy of living in consumers’ worlds.

Thus the challenge of transforming the plastic icon’s life into something fantastic to enthrall modern consumers—primarily adults in the case of the upcoming Warner Bros. film—couldn’t be more important. However, the robust marketing for “Barbie” has seemingly made us all Barbie girls in a Barbie world as each activation has consistently gone viral—even the marketing strategy itself.

Over the past year, the “Barbie” film has built a culture of its own as viral moments from Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling being announced to play Barbie and Ken to leaked set photos and a slow drip of teasers, trailers and tracks from the official album have bubbled up into a full Barbie-mania that has painted pop culture pink. Even Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” which also hits theaters on July 21, has gotten a boost from Barbie enthusiasts.

Mattel

The film and additional efforts to franchise Mattel’s toys (features for Hot Wheels and Barney are reportedly also in the works) are the product of Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, who joined the company in 2018. Notably, the same year marked a turn in Mattel’s worldwide revenue. The toy maker had seen annual net sales decline from $6.5 billion to $4.5 billion from 2013 to 2018, per Statista. In 2021 (when the “Barbie” movie began making waves with the announcement of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach as co-writers and Gerwig as director), the Barbie brand hit its highest net sales value since the 2013 slump at $1.7 billion, boosting Mattel along with it.

In a sign of the Barbie brand’s importance to Mattel, the company this week filed a notice of opposition, trying to stop Burberry from getting the “BRBY” trademark rights.

As “Barbie” is an official Mattel Films production (alongside Heyday Films and Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment), the film has the expected amount of cross-promotion. An official line of “Barbie” Barbies was created to depict Robbie’s characterization of the doll as well as co-stars Issa Rae and America Ferrera. Three of the four dolls depicting Robbie in various film costumes are sold out.

Experiential activations

Although constructing immersive activations has become increasingly important as fans crave interaction with their favorite franchises, the “Barbie” creators have made clear their desire for the doll’s world to feel tangible to audiences.

“I want everyone to feel like they can reach onto the screen and touch everything,” said Gerwig in a video tour of the Barbie Dreamhouse set for Architectural Digest.

An early effort to get audiences to party with Barbie was an AI profile picture generator. The generator debuted alongside a series of character posters for the film, showing each Barbie and Ken from the upcoming movie in front of a glittery background reminiscent of the Mattel logo’s shape. The generator would insert a user’s photo onto the same backdrop and allow them to customize the tagline, “This Barbie is a ____.”

Of course, the internet did what the internet does and created endless memes of the results.

Recently, Twitter users seemed to collectively lose their minds when aerial footage of a real-life Barbie home in Malibu, California, was posted. In the days since, it was revealed as a partnership between the film and Airbnb, which will book two reservations for July 21 and 22, aligned with the film’s release. Bookings open July 17.

And, as if Barbie didn’t already have her hands full being the branding queen of the real world, Forever 21 took her into the metaverse. In addition to launching a real apparel line in stores, the fashion brand created a virtual duplicate of the line for Roblox. The partnership also included a contest to create a duplicate of the winner and their fashion style for the online game platform.

Similarly, Xbox is bringing Barbie into its universe. The Microsoft-owned gaming console is not only hosting a contest to award one winner a pink console housed in a mini Dreamhouse replica, but Forza Horizon 5 players will be gifted an in-game replica of Barbie’s pink 1956 Chevrolet Corvette EV Corvette and Ken’s 2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup from the film. The partnership also includes a contest to award winners Barbie dolls dressed in Xbox-branded gear.

Products, products and more products

And what better way to immerse oneself into the world of Barbie than modeling one’s wardrobe and home after the doll and her dream house? While Barbie has long tailored products to adult audiences, partnerships for the film have multiplied exponentially. 

Makeup lines from NYX Cosmetics and OPI allow consumers to dress up in vibrant neons and pastels. Gap, Aldo and Forever 21 offer apparel fit for a Barbaholic. And the look wouldn’t be complete without accessories from Claire’s, a set of skates from Impala Skate or a suitcase via Beis Travel.

And to create the Dreamhouse of, well, dreams, homeware from Ruggable, Homesick, Dragon Glassware, Moon Oral Beauty and Funboy complete the “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” vibe.

Onscreen content

Consumers aren’t the only ones who want to be in Barbie’s world—advertisers do too. WB Pictures’ parent company Warner Bros. Discovery elicited laughter and applause during its upfront presentation in May when it played the trailer for HGTV’s “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge.”

The show, which premieres on July 16, is a four-part series in which supermodel Ashley Graham hosts a cast of the channel’s all-star personalities to makeover a home into something fit for Barbie. The series will culminate with a viewer winning a trip to stay in the renovated home.

For the many hoping to win a trip to either HGTV’s or Airbnb’s Dreamhouse, they needn’t worry about Barbie’s insurance status. A spot from Progressive depicts the brand’s goofy cast of insurers outside the house, making corny puns about the mystery inhabitants of the pink, plastic structure.

‘Barbie World’

And it’s not just the “Barbie” film that has penetrated the world of marketing. “Barbie World,” the remix of Aqua’s iconic track “Barbie Girl” by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, features a few brands of its own in its music video. Sporting 12 million YouTube views as of this writing, the video—in which the two songstresses fly through cotton candy clouds on jet skis and dance inside the Barbie Dreamhouse—showcases Olipop soda cans and a series of billboards advertising M1 Finance.