What can AB InBev learn from Mattel on how to revitalize a brand by being more inclusive?
What can AB InBev learn from Mattel on how to revitalize a brand by being more inclusive?
Fourth quarter 2022 reported financial results for Mattel looked as bad as it could be: Net Sales down 22%, Net Income decrease of $210 million. Sales of its Dolls division (of which Barbie is the main brand) were down 27%.
Time was running short for the owner of one of the strongest portfolios of children’s and family entertainment franchises in the world to revitalize its flagship iconic brand Barbie.
Here comes Greta Gerwig’s?Barbie movie, which had the objective to do many different things at once: make the movie a financial success by being funny and appealing to a large worldwide audience, pay tribute to the seven-decade history of the Barbie doll cultural icon, while at the same time rejuvenate the brand by satirizing and deconstructing the Barbie mythology, making a very specific statement about both feminism and modern-day masculinity.
According to Rolling Stones*, unlike past attempts to boycott brands like Bud Light, ?#BoycottBarbie seems to be flopping. According to data from Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub who specializes in disinformation, the hashtag #boycottbarbie has only received about 407 mentions in the past 30 days, compared to 9,000 mentions of the #boycottbudlight hashtag in the same time period (and that’s well after the campaign against Bud Light reached its peak). So what did Mattel do right with their approach, from which ABInbev could learn a few things (if you remember, just few weeks ago we experienced the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney saga, which exploded into the biggest brand crisis of the year so far).
First thing: it is difficult to please everybody. Mattel has a clear brand positioning and it chose to focus and delight its biggest consumer segment, while minimizing the damage to other segments that are not at its core.
One of the film’s choices was to be” all-in” on matriarchy view of the world; after all, this is a movie aimed at girls, the core target group of Barbie. And while it’s a celebration of the Barbie doll, it’s also a critique of the society that made such an unrealistic, idealized version of the female form so popular. This bold choice could have also antagonized the anti-woke conservative gang (which it did, to some extent), and they have many things to complain about, one of which being the casting of transgender actor Hari Nef as “Doctor Barbie”. But ?the movie is just smart enough to not let the matriarchy off the hook: when Gosling’s Ken realizes the patriarchical “real world” and brings those ideas back with him to Barbieland, he instantly turns it into a beer commercial colony that could be very much the territory of Bud beer. References to the financial scandal that ensnared the inventor of Barbie or satyrising the all-male Board of Mattel make the film look more authentic (although the movie is co-produced by Mattel).
Contrast this approach to BudLight, a beer that wants to stand for everything to everyone. ‘Easy to drink’ is pretty much its brand DNA, which makes it difficult to take a stance in cultural wars like Barbie does. Especially if you upset your most loyal and vocal advocates. In an effort to “elevate” the brand.
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Secondly, on the execution side,” Barbiemania” did not just happen: according to Time magazine, more than 2,000 brands (among which luxury brand Channel) chose to partner with Mattel and Warner Bros to co-promote the movie, making the?Barbie?marketing campaign inescapable and, like the aesthetic of the film, hyper feminine. This amplified the already very substantial advertising campaign of the movie through all channels and all audiences.
Last but not least, choosing some of the hottest actors in Hollywood (Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling), who were perfectly casted in their roles, helped the movie by benefiting from the huge popularity of the actors)
So congratulations to the hard work and right choices of Mattel and WarnerBros who made this movie a global success.
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