This Barbie Knows how to do Influencer Marketing
- clb0146
- Mar 18, 2024
- 2 min read
The popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, have allowed creators to gain a large following and occasionally enough revenue to turn social media into a full-time career. These creators are usually called influencers. Many brands or companies will contact these influencers to help promote a new product or line.
Influencer marketing aims to reach an existing, active social media following. Influencers are experts in their respective fields. Influencers can influence whether their followers buy a certain product or not, or go see a certain film. The partnerships between companies and influencers are the soul of influencer marketing.
A great example of influencer marketing comes from the Barbie Movie. This past summer the movie made a huge splash not just in theaters, but in many collaborations with big brands and even with influencers. The marketing team for the movie used social media to their advantage, they have been active on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X, sharing behind-the-scenes content, trailers and other promotional materials:
As I said earlier, the film utilized influencers and even some celebrities to help generate excitement for the film by creating inspired memes based on the likeness of the film’s earliest promotions. Fans may even make their own Barbie-inspired avatars with the movie's built-in selfie generator. In Barbie's place, personalities such as Taylor Swift were placed.
Sending influencers like Alix Earle, Brittany Broski, and Remi Jo, who all three reach different audiences, to the premiere in LA, is another example of influencer marketing. Usually, influencers like Earle and Jo do TikTok videos that are “Get Ready with Me” which allow them to share what they are going to and who they plan to wear. This has their audiences interested in what their favorite influencer thought about the movie and could encourage people to see the film once it hits theaters. As well as before the release of the movie, Barbie sent PR packages to influencers and micro-influencers that were filled with all things Barbie from the album to t-shirts that say “Ken-rgy” on them.
Even once the film hit theaters, the film’s marketing team still kept going. Many companies saw how much love and attention the movie had gained and many of these companies collaborated with the film, from Air BnB to Burger King. Specifically, my favorite was the Barbie X Béis collab, which includes the travel goods brand’s signature essentials in bright Barbie pink. The user-generated content that came from this campaign was impressive. Many micro-influencers and even a few influencers were gifted these bags and made videos on it.
In September of 2023, Barbie sent out another round of PR packages to influencers and micro-influencers once the film came out on Digital and DVD. This was brilliant because it put Barbie back in the minds of their audience and would encourage them to watch the film again or purchase the DVD.
Barbie did such an amazing job with its marketing campaign. It has captivated and thrilled a worldwide audience by fusing together fascinating trailers, behind-the-scenes looks, and appealing promotional content from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and using influencers to their advantage. We can learn a lot from the campaign as a whole, and it will probably be talked about for years and years to come.
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