Barbie Gets a Makeover: "You Can Be Anything" Campaign

What started out as a way to broaden her daughter’s imagination of what she could become, turned into a global icon and a multimillion-dollar corporation. The Barbie corporation has brought joy to many girls for over 60 years, but the company recently underwent a huge renovation to their brand image and has comeback stronger than ever.

The Barbie doll was invented by Ruth Marianna Handler. Handler saw her daughter’s toy choices were limited to “being a mom or caregiver, whereas her son had toys that allowed him to imagine himself as a firefighter, astronaut, doctor, and more” (Barbie Timeline). This social inequality among children inspired Handler to create a doll that showed girls, like her daughter, they could be anything. Shortly after the creation of the Barbie doll, Mattel Inc., a global toy company, bought her invention. Barbie dolls dominated the toy market. According to Time Magazine, Mattel Inc.’s “brand does $1 billion in sales across more than 150 countries annually, and 92% of American girls ages 3 to 12 have owned a Barbie, thanks to her affordable $10 price tag” (Dockterman, E.). However, the company faced financial troubles between 2011 and 2015. With the economic rise of Disney’s “Frozen” merchandise and the fact “the doll hadn’t really evolved since it was first launched in the late 1950s”, called into question the ethicality of the company’s brand and brand image (Smith, S.).

A lot of parents steered away from Barbie because “none of the little girls seem to think Barbie was aspirational, despite all her many careers. And then there was the body image issue. People were saying that if Barbie was expanded into human size, she wouldn’t have enough room for a liver and she wouldn’t be able to hold her head up” (Smith, S.). When looking at Barbie’s media website, there were a lot of careers before 2014, but I realized the careers consisted of “Career Girl” and “Working Woman”. This doesn’t give girls a specific goal except to work. Also, I noticed there was not enough representation for males. The Ken doll has had three shades of skin tone in his 50 years of existence.

Barbie knew their mistakes and began fixing their brand and brand image immediately. Barbie announced in late 2015, when their stock was declining, the underperforming doll will be more vocal and have a diverse range of features such as races, heights and sizes. Their new campaign “You Can Be Anything”, which released in 2015, focused on the lack of careers concerning parents and encouraged girls to reach for the stars when it came to career goals. It’s inspired by Ruth Handler’s original mission for the Barbie doll. The commercial advertisement put young girls into real life, work settings. The girls played out what they wanted to be when they grew up with occupations like a professor, a professional soccer coach, a veterinarian, a paleontologist and an executive. The Drum commented that “Mattel took a risk. They walked away from the tried-and-true product spots highlighting the doll and her latest accessory. And the result was this marriage of brand truth and key cultural insight that led to work that didn’t just advertise but created a conversation” (Writer, S.). They also launched in 2015 the “One-of-a-Kind” campaign in which Barbie partnered with celebrities like Zendaya, Ashley Graham and Mario Lopez for their incredible work done for encouraging young girls and boys to truly be who they want to be. Barbie gifts the “One-of-a-Kind” recipient with a one-of-a-kind look alike Barbie doll.

By the beginning of 2016, Barbie introduced three new body types: petite, tall and curvy. Time Magazine said, “Adding three new body types now is sure to irritate someone: just picking out the terms petite, tall and curvy, and translating them into dozens of languages without causing offense, took months” (Dockterman, E.). While there were some negative comments, most accepted this addition and praised Barbie for making “more empowering toys for their daughters” (Dockterman, E.). I was especially excited to see this transition because Barbie has always been seen as the idealistic American female look. However, beauty ideals are now being represented by Kim Kardashian West, Beyonce and Christina Hendricks, so it is a relevant time for young girls to be offered more than one body type option.

In 2017, Ken becomes more diverse with his multiple skin tones, body types and hairstyles. The body types featured were slim, broad and original. I love that they added more sizing for Ken dolls, but I also wish they would’ve added more heights. But, for the modernizing brand image, this was a great way to offer more diverse products. A Barbie press release said, “The new Ken dolls join an expanded Barbie Fashionistas line, making it the most diverse fashion doll line in the marketplace” (Barbie). In 2018, Barbie added STEM career to her resume because people felt that these types of careers were not being offered for girls, especially girls of color. In 2019, limited edition wheelchair accessories and gender-neutral dolls were offered in the marketplace. Mattel continued to appeal to more consumers, but by making dolls with prosthetic limb, no hair and vitiligo. “For children with the condition, a doll with a face that looks like theirs could help them with the social stigma associated with vitiligo” (Cramer, M.).

Barbie has taking tremendous strides in making up for past mistakes. Because of the “You Can Do Anything” campaign allowed the brand and brand image to significantly soar so much that revenue for the first 9 months in 2021 was $1.8 billion (DiMartino, M.). Barbie didn’t leave out any subgroups of individuals who wanted or needed to be represented, and they took the necessary steps to gain the trust back from their market. Hopefully, Barbie will not disconnect from modern times again.

References

Barbie. (2017, June 20). Barbie Brand Reveals Most Diverse Ken Lineup To Date. Retrieved from http://www.barbiemedia.com/news/detail/152.html

Barbie Timeline. (No Date). Barbie timeline. Retrieved from http://www.barbiemedia.com/timeline.html

Cramer, M. (2020, January 29). After All These Years, Barbie Is Still Reinventing Herself. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/business/mattel-barbie-dolls-vitiligo.html?.?mc=aud_dev&ad-keywords=auddevgate&gclid=CjwKCAjwzt6LBhBeEiwAbPGOgShYJswOYuvQGQHwLSa44w72H5cwH_27AqNHfe7MdxZD-f6NWUfSmBoCPwgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

DiMartino, M. (2021, October 25). Mattel Posts $1.8B Revenue in Third Quarter. Retrieved from https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/oct/25/mattel-posts-18b-revenue-third-quarter/

Dockterman, E. (2021, November 4). Barbie’s Got a New Body. Retrieved from https://time.com/barbie-new-body-cover-story/

Smith, S. (2021, April 26). Barbie’s Big Makeover. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/991013395/barbies-big-makeover

Writer, S. (2016, March 31). 2015: Barbie’s ‘Imagine the Possibilities’ video goes viral. Retrieved from https://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/06/30/marketing-moment-91-barbie-s-imagine-possibilities-video-goes-viral