Marketing: thanks to Barbie, a pink wave has swept the planet

American conglomerates capitalized on the event by signing fashion deals, beauty products, or even accessories: flip-flops, roller skates, toothbrushes, face masks, clothing large and small for dolls and humans, inflatable pool toys. Extensive efforts have been made to

Among the many chosen are Gap, Microsoft (Barbie Xbox), Forever 21, Ulta Beauty, Hot Wheels (Mattel brand), Chevrolet, Progressive (insurance). And even partnered with rival Hasbro to publish a Monopoly Barbie in the fall. In return, Mattel would produce a Transformers version of the Uno card game.

“I have been covering this area for thirty years, I have never seen such an incident. Barbie is everywhere”, said AFP Paul Dergarabedian, a media analyst at the specialty company comScore. “Barbie has been created for marketing. It is perfect because it is already a toy, a product, and it represents a way of life and even a colour,” he adds. The color is pink in all its shades and is decorated with trendy fluorescent colors, with a tendency towards the Pantone reference 219C. Such was the amount of the dominant pink color on the sets of the film, said one production manager, that there was a worldwide shortage of it.

The way of life is “barbicore”. Barbie-style life, with acidic colors and sixties style – Barbara “Barbie” Millicent Roberts, her real name, was born in 1959. Not to mention the abode inspired by their dream home. There’s even a real one in Malibu, offered by Ken on the Airbnb platform and available free for two nights when the film is released, while Barbie is away.

“Mattel and Warner have generated incredible buzz. It’s irresistible,” says Mr. Dargarabedian, who expects a “huge” first weekend in North America with at least $75 million in box office. “It’s Barbie weekend,” he said. Because Christopher Nolan’s nearly two-hour film “Oppenheimer,” dedicated to the father of the atomic bomb, also comes out at the same time. An inconsolable face-to-face, baptized “Barbenheimer” on social networks who enjoys it.

“It is unprecedented. This increases the potential for these two unique films to both benefit from this event,” says Dargarabedian, adding that this will also be the second weekend of the blockbuster ‘Mission Impossible’, which just signed off on the best opening of the series Are. America in the North.

And Barbie’s iconic casting adds to it: Margot Robbie is Barbie, Ryan Gosling is Ken, alongside America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae or Will Ferrell. Greta Gerwig wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach and was behind the camera. According to Warner, the cast and crew have collected fifty Oscar nominations and eight statuettes.

In terms of the soundtrack, the production also featured, among others, a duet between Dua Lipa, Lizzo, The Kid LaRoi and Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice (with Aqua) covering the 1997 hit “Barbie Girl” by Danish group Norwegian. There was no shortage. , At the time, Mattel sued for trademark infringement, as well as sexualisation of its Star doll.

The film has been mired in controversy since its production, as just like the film, scenes deemed pro-Chinese have been banned in Vietnam which would have to be blurred in the Philippines. In France, the poster reads, “She can do anything. That, it’s just Ken”, caused a stir, with some seeing it as a sexual innuendo.