Barbie is a Model for a Brand Refresh...
Have you seen the Barbie movie yet?
I loved it.
It cracked me up.
But I remember playing with Barbies with my cousin, Jenny, when we were kids. She had all that stuff the Corvette, the Dream House, Ken, etc.
Mattel has seen the success they are having with the launch of the movie and want to take that to some of their other brands.
Is that a good strategy?
Is there more to the story?
What’s the deal?
Mattel has a good set of brands to play with:
American Girl
Hot Wheels
Power Wheels
Pictionary
The Masters of the Universe
The challenge is that none of these brands will carry the same brand awareness and brand equity that Barbie does.
This presents an issue when Mattel considers the success of the Barbie movie to one that brought Barbie to a “new level of cultural awareness”.
I’d argue that Barbie has the best brand awareness of any toy in the world. I’d also say that until the past 6-12 months, the Barbie brand had become old, dusty, and dated.
To me the success of the Barbie launch campaign has as much to do with updating the brand to make it relevant to newer audiences as it does with anything else.
To me, the sleight of hand of the movie is in the way that Greta Gerwig takes all of your conceptions of what Barbie means and works them into the movie so that you can say, “Yes. That’s what Barbie means to me.”
Then, she pulls the trick saying, “That’s Barbie. But Barbie can and should be more.”
It is great stuff.
This is where Barbie’s new level of cultural awareness comes from…
On the other hand, will that same move work for Mattel’s other brands?
No.
Because they are in different stages of their brand development. No one is clamoring for a movie about the Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots and when the trailer drops, I’m not sure it will make even 10% of the cultural dent that Barbie’s trailer did.
So, it is a game of expectations.
Masters of the Universe was a big thing in the 80s when I was a kid. It needs a brand refresh, certainly. But it also needs an elevated brand awareness.
American Girl, probably closest to Barbie in cultural brand awareness, but it is unlikely to give Mattel the same platform for a huge product launch.
The point is that:
You can’t just cut and paste a “launch” or “partnership” formula. That isn’t likely to work.
You have to pay attention to the underlying/untapped brand equity. You can’t just assume you can build it or regenerate it with the snap of your fingers.
You must understand the context of your brand decisions. They matter. Barbie was unique. No other brand movie is likely to have the same opportunity for impact that Barbie did, even if you run the perfect campaign.
I will say, I’m curious about a Magic 8 Ball movie though.
What do y’all think?