Everyone’s talking about Barbie again

For the longest time, Barbie dolls were the must-have toy for girls. From the first Barbie in the iconic bathing suit in 1959, to Pregnant Barbie, to Police Officer Barbie, to Disney Princess Barbie, that girl has been the busiest plaything in the toy aisle. To date, Mattel has sold over one billion Barbie dolls.

The pencil-thin blonde doll’s popularity faded in the 2000s, though, as the market flooded with alternatives like the pouty-lipped Bratz dolls. In 2015, Barbie sales were at the lowest level in decades.

After that, Mattel started taking steps to make Barbie more inclusive. There are now Barbies that showcase a higher level of body diversity, like curvy dolls or dolls with hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, or the skin condition vitiligo. Other Barbies celebrate female role models, such as space scientist Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock, to inspire girls to pursue careers in STEM fields, where women are currently underrepresented.

Not only are Barbie dolls becoming more diverse, but the online conversation about Barbie is also changing. Let’s take gender diversity, for example.

Looking at Twitter authors talking about Barbie over the last decade, it’s not a jaw dropping surprise that the bulk of Barbie mentions used to come from women. This was a doll originally created and marketed toward girls, after all. But over the years, we see the gender gap dwindling.

While in 2013, 72% of Twitter authors talking about Barbie were women and only 28% were men. But in 2023, it’s 55% women and 45% men. 

What makes female and male authors alike talk about Barbie online in 2023? It’s all about the Barbie movie.

“Two tickets to Barbie, please.”

Even with gliding from one career to the next, there’s one Barbie Mattel never pulled off: Live-Action-Movie Barbie. Until now, that is. 

We imagine most readers will be aware of Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated “Barbie” film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, which was announced in 2019 (just when those two graphs above really started inching closer). 

In the last two months, over 990k people mentioned Barbie online, an increase of 58% compared to the two months prior. And according to BuzzSumo, nearly 66k articles were published about Barbie in the past 12 months, making her the talk of the town.

Exactly 10 days ago, a new movie trailer was released, and it immediately went viral on Twitter.

In particular, social media users would comment on the trailer’s ultra-feminine fashion, gush about the star studded-cast (which includes a very blue-haired Dua Lipa), or point out that the highly anticipated movie Oppenheimer – which will be released on the same day – has a serious competitor.

There’s no question that the movie has caused a full-on internet frenzy. The movie’s clever marketing strategy focusing on UGC keeps people talking about it, regardless of gender.

Along with the release of the first trailer, they also released movie posters featuring the different Barbies and Ken that appear in the movie. The cherry on top is the Barbie Selfie Generator that users can use to make their own Barbie posters. And the fans are there for it. Using their own selfies, celebrity pics, or movie characters, the Barbie movie posters are everywhere.

Another stroke of marketing genius was the official movie poster tagline: “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” The joke – referring to how Ken dolls play only a secondary role in the Barbie world – quickly turned into memes en masse celebrating incredible women in relationships with …shall we say… “less incredible” men. There are cheeky remarks about famous couples, people celebrating their partners, or describing the relationship of fictional characters.

Barbie fans are excited. In positive conversations about the upcoming Barbie movie, ‘excited’ is the most used word. In the past 12 months, there have been 88k mentions of “Barbie tickets, please,” indicating that people are already sold on the concept and are counting down the days until the movie opens.

We’re definitely catching interest in Barbie on the rise with Barbie finally pulling off the transformation as a live-action movie star. Only time will tell if this will be enough for Mattel to make Barbie “the next big thing” again.