Research shows that from the age of five, girls may develop self-limiting beliefs and begin to think they're not as smart and capable as boys.

They stop believing their gender can do or be anything. This is called the Dream Gap and to help close it, Barbie launched the Dream Gap Project in 2018.

The initiative aims to give girls the resources they need to continue believing in themselves.

And now more than ever, there’s an increasing importance to connect girls with female role models.

Recognizing the importance of role models for young girls, our objective was to expose girls aged 6-10 to trailblazing women and girls to hear their stories.

Our creative idea was a short-form content series that ran on Barbie’s YouTube channel, featuring role models, fan-favorite influencers, and trailblazing women thought-leaders.

Each episode focused on a wide variety of exciting themes, including aerospace, animals, fashion, and art, covering key themes in young girls’ development.

We enlisted iconic role models such as Dr. Jane Goodall, Shonda Rhimes, Gloria Estefan, and Laurie Hernandez, and even Alena Analeigh McQuarter, the youngest Black person accepted to medical school at just 13! Each episode was hosted by animated Barbie, and blended interactive discussions with kids and role models, Barbie-animated content, engaging activities, musical performances, interactive games, and more.

By leveraging Barbie the character as a role model, we reached our target in an authentic way, while amplifying the stories of iconic role models to show young girls that they can be anything through engaging real-life examples and content they actually want to watch.

Research shows that impactful content is one of the most powerful ways to reach young girls and inspire them to believe. Our strategy was to tackle the Dream Gap through engaging content with You Can Be Anything – a unique video series that covered key education-based themes that were relevant to kids and engaging for adults.

We aimed to reach and inspire children aged 6-10, entertain parents, generate additional media and social buzz around the Barbie brand purpose, and capitalize on the success of the initial episodes in 2021.

Ultimately, we wanted to create content that transcended culture and became a source of inspiration for young girls today, encouraging them to reach for the stars.

In collaboration with Mattel, we wrote and developed episodes that covered key themes in young girls’ development and showed real-life women in roles in which women have been historically underrepresented.

We crafted episodes to be limited to 8-10 minutes for maximum engagement within the demographic. We looked at similar content kids in the demo were watching, and modeled our content off that, with short, digestible, engaging, and ultimately educational segments, along with a prominent Barbie presence throughout. The episodes fit seamlessly with other Barbie content, but by incorporating young girls along with role models in each episode, we were able to create an authentic educational experience for young girls and their families.

Each episode dropped at a specific time pertinent to the subject matter, from International Women’s Day to Hispanic Heritage Month, and all remain available on Barbie’s YouTube channel to watch anytime.

What started as a one-off piece of content expanded to 12 engaging episodes due to popular demand. The episodes received over 13.5M views, including 270,000+ hours of viewing time and generating 26M impressions.

Appearances on the ISS and alongside Dr. Jane Goodall showed the cultural impact that Barbie has not only on young girls, but multigenerational women. We authentically reached our target while amplifying the stories of iconic role models to show young girls that they can be anything.

By leveraging Barbie the character as a role model, we were successfully able to tackle important issues that are relevant to girls in a fun and engaging way. We used a global platform to honor real-life role models and amplify their stories to inspire girls - because imagining you can be anything is just the beginning. Actually seeing and hearing real stories makes all the difference.