Research shows that from the age of five, many girls develop self-limiting beliefs and begin to think they're not as smart and capable as boys. This is called the Dream Gap and to help close it, Barbie launched the Dream Gap Project in 2018 to give girls the resources and support they need to continue believing in themselves.

In 2021, the brand introduced You Can Be Anything – a first-of-its-kind public service video series. Our inspiring, interactive and educational live streams empowered young girls from all over the world to help them reach their potential.

This social-led video series aimed to:

- Reach children aged 8-12, while engaging parents

- Raise awareness about the Dream Gap and inspire young girls

- Generate media buzz around Barbie and the Dream Gap

Originally slated to be an in-person festival event in 2020, Mattel had to pivot to a digital-only series due to the global pandemic. This allowed us to expand our reach even wider through social platforms that could target people all over the world. You Can Be Anything became a four-part content series that we wrote, developed, and produced to focus on key themes in young girls’ development. The pivot to a digital series also meant that we could feature an even more diverse pool of talent and empowering female voices, as we weren’t limited to on-site content capture.

As an added bonus to the episodic content, we curated a series of three 30-minute virtual meet & greet sessions with three of the series’ guests, allowing each child to have 60 seconds with their favorite role models, face-to-face.

In collaboration with Mattel, we wrote and developed four episodes that covered key themes in young girls’ development while ensuring that the subject matter was not only relatable to children, but accessible to adults as well. We chose Facebook and YouTube to air the content due to the fact that Barbie sees the most engagement on those two platforms, with over 26 million combined followers.

Working with prominent female leaders, trailblazers, and influencers, we helped encourage today’s young girls to become the leaders of tomorrow. The cross-generational content featured these role models and fan-favorite influencers allowing us to reach our target demographic; girls aged 8-12 and their parents; in a meaningful way.

We managed to find a way to navigate production around COVID restrictions while booking talent, developing art and creative design, animating, blocking, scriptwriting, editing, and seamlessly executing post-production and cutdowns.

We chose to air the series live throughout March 2021; globally recognized as International Women’s Month; for maximum relevance and impact. Episodes aired on Saturdays at 1pm ET/10am PT on Barbie’s Facebook and YouTube channels – the perfect time when children are out of school and more parents are at home and engaged with their kids.

The four episodes were:

- Your Voice (Activism)

- Music & Dance

- STEAM

- Sports & Wellness

Each episode blended panel discussions, Q&A sessions, Barbie-animated content, engaging activities, and music.

We also integrated Time For Kids – a platform that uses kid reporters to provide a unique perspective for kids, by kids – to appeal to our demographic even further.

Each episode remained on Barbie’s social platforms available to watch anytime, helping expand our reach to young girls and their parents all over the world.

The Barbie You Can Be Anything series set a benchmark for the Dream Gap Project, receiving almost 3 million views globally across social channels.

We had an overall reach of 7.3 million and across Facebook, our content received almost 60,000 reactions.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Across Barbie’s Facebook page:

- Page actions increased

- Views increased

- Likes increased

- Post reach increased

- Story reach increased

- Post engagement increased

Facebook messages of inspiration flooded in from around the world, including, “Wish they had this when I was a little girl.”

The series was so successful we expanded the series in the fall of 2021 and into 2022 – as we’re working on future segments from inspiring women all over the world - a testament to the power and impact we’ve had in inspiring girls to be the best version of themselves.