Looking back on the summer of 2023, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Barbie movie was always destined to be a hit.

That is far from the truth.   

Because the movie came with misperceptions…

Prior to launch, the perception was that the Barbie movie would be for 6-yr-old girls who played with dolls. 

The Barbie brand itself had also been on a journey of reappraisal around how the brand was perceived.   

However, we knew that the movie’s take on feminism and gender roles meant it had broader appeal than was presumed.

It was a genre-defying movie that couldn’t be put in a box – so we set out to make it feel like an unmissable pop culture event for EVERYONE.

As the trailer went on to say ‘If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you’.

In a summer marked by greyness and seriousness - with the UK facing economic challenges, a terrible summer weather forecast and the release of the sombre Oppenheimer on the same day, we saw an opportunity to bring Barbie's vibrant world into reality across the UK.

By making Barbie a tangible, three-dimensional presence in Brits’ everyday lives, we could create a sense of joy, positivity, and shared experience that would make the movie's release an unmissable cultural event.

Just as Barbie steps out of her fantasy world into the real world in the movie, we set out to bring Barbie's world into the real UK, infusing British cultural icons with her signature pink, playfulness, and optimism.

By blurring the lines between the movie and reality, we aimed to create a participatory cultural moment that people wouldn't want to miss, getting them back into cinemas post-pandemic.

We created an integrated strategy that used creative media formats to brighten every facet of British popular culture - elevating the campaign beyond just being a series of advertising interactions, by blending content, partnerships, experiences and media formats that fed each other to build both engagement and a sense of omni presence.

Every touchpoint had to…

1)place the movie – and its trademark Pink – into popular culture

and/or

2) create a moment (in real life/on social media) where the British movie audience could place themselves into the pop culture moment that was being created around the movie.

And to deliver executional consistency, we applied three ‘Always’:

•Always Pink (making it THE colour of the summer in a grey UK) 

•Always Positive (no cynicism allowed, despite the British predilection for snarkiness) 

•Always Playful (everything we did should raise a smile and create a moment of joy in someone’s day) 

We infiltrated every aspect of UK popular culture:

•We took over significant cultural landmarks, teased the nation with category-defying, unbranded posters and Barbie-fied British icons like pink 'Black cabs' and sparkly buses.

•Snap Filters allowed Brits to create Barbie land wherever they were.

•A Barbie Selfie Generator let everyone share their inner Barbie on social media.

•People could also become Barbie (or Ken) in real-life by stepping into life-sized Barbie boxes.

•In British TV's hottest summer show – Love Island super fan Margot Robbie starred in a bespoke TV ad.

•In music, we hosted an album launch party with Mark Ronson and re-branded dance radio station Kiss.

•And we staged physical & digital retail takeovers and turned shopping-centre elevators into Barbie boxes.

By creating a pop culture phenomenon, fans and brands (including Google and Unilever) then started doing our marketing for us with their own Barbie-fied moments.

Barbie had the highest UK launch week awareness of ANY Warner Bros. release in its 100-year history.

The movie delivered a 51% UK over-performance vs US box office (meaning its UK box office was +51% vs. the pro rata expectation based on the movie’s US performance – showing that our unique UK approach had made a disproportionate difference)

The Barbie movie became Warner Bros.’ biggest UK box office release EVER, even exceeding the performance of British institutions like the Harry Potter franchise.

This was an integrated launch campaign that was most definitely #Kenough.