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October 12, 2023 – During my (amazing) time working at Mattel, I had the incredibly fun and engaging experience of supporting Barbie Entertainment with brand strategy.

Though the whole world is familiar with THE Barbie movie from this summer, a smaller segment of the population – parents and kids – has known Barbie movies as something entirely different. For over 20 years, several dozen Barbie movies were released as a series of loveable, animated films covering a wide-range of storylines.

Titles like Barbie of Swan Lake, Barbie Big City Big Dreams, Barbie as Rapunzel, Barbie in the Nutcracker, Barbie Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends, and many more have delighted children and parents alike with charming scenes and a series of dolls and playsets that connect to each movie.

Out of all of the initiatives that I have worked on in my career, one of my very favorite was a study to understand the magic of why these movies resonated with consumers and how Mattel could continue to produce relevant content and marketing to build the franchise into the future.

We spoke with parents and children across the U.S. and surveyed hundreds more to crack the code and unearth why kids would want to watch an animated Barbie movie instead of other available entertainment options.

Prior to starting the study, the Barbie Entertainment team hypothesized that the main answer to this question would be something like the love of Barbie the character, the animation quality, or the stories brought to life in the movies.

While all of these aspects were fundamentally important features, we discovered that the primary insight was not one of these obvious benefits but rather an underlying emotional one: Parents equated putting on a Barbie move to hiring a trusted babysitter to play with and watch their children for an hour.

The Disney movies at the time typically had villains that were scary for younger children (e.g., Scar in The Lion King or Ursula in The Little Mermaid) and had plot points that required explanation (e.g., Why was Cinderella’s step mom so mean?). By contrast, the Barbie movies freed parents to do things around the house while occupying their children, no questions asked (paradise found!).

Barbie Entertainment as babysitter isn’t the sexiest insight, and you may also be thinking that it’s not the most differentiated insight. After all, the same thing could be said about franchises like Peppa Pig or Dora the Explorer. But when a brand leverages a consumer truth like this through its brand filter, it can become both highly strategic and differentiating.

This insight became a guidepost for the brand in terms of how to make decisions about plot points, trailer development, and marketing communications.

In addition, it allowed the Barbie brand – credited by most consumers as being both trustworthy and safe – to differentiate itself from its competitors by telling stories in a way that only Barbie could tell.

What do you think is the magic behind your brand’s success? If you haven’t taken the step to talk to your users, consumers, or shoppers to find out what they truly love about your brand, there has never been a more important time to do so.

One of the most common things I’ve heard from marketers is how surprised they were that an initiative of this nature turned out to be exactly the direction their team needed to inform decision-making and unlock future growth for their brand.

If you’re interested in the difference this could make for your brand, give us a shout! We’d love to collaborate with you to find the magic behind your brand.