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Barbie Fever: How Warner Bros. Crafted the Marketing Campaign of the Year/Decade!

In 2023, the world was swept into Barbie fever. In anticipation of the release of the Barbie Movie, a pink-coloured haze pervaded our news feeds, our fashion trends, tourism hot spots and was even used to propel political and social movements across the globe.

It was a marketing campaign that became a cultural movement, the likes of which we’ve never quite seen before.

The man behind this global marketing phenomenon is Josh Goldstine, the President of Worldwide Marketing for Warner Bros. Pictures Group. Goldstine is a film marketing veteran who has led campaigns for more than 220 major motion picture releases and currently leads the execution of all marketing campaigns for global theatrical releases from Warner Bros Pictures, New Line Cinema, DC-Based Films and Warner Animation Group, as well as for HBO Max original features.

Goldstine all out for this one. It didn’t matter if you loved Barbie, hated it or felt indifferent- you couldn’t escape it!

Was the investment worth it?

We think these numbers speak for themselves:

  • Barbie made a shocking $1.446 billion (USD) at the box office: To put this into context, only 53 movies in the history of cinema have passed the $1 billion mark.
  • It’s the 14th highest grossing movie in the history of cinema: It surpassed movies like Avengers, Age of Ultron and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
  • Mattel credited the movie with their 9% year-on-year increase in sales from July 2023 to September 2023. An increase to $1.9bn: It was also the first increase in sales Mattel had seen in a year.
  • Of the top 20 highest grossing films in history, Barbie is the only movie directed by a woman: The movie made history and broke records for its female-dominated cast and production crew.

Safe to say the answer is YES, the epic marketing strategy executed by Josh Goldstine and the Warner Bros. team was certainly effective. Not only did they create a history-making movement with their marketing campaign, but their ROI was off the charts.

Josh Goldstine, will be joining us live from LA for RESET 2024 to tell us how he crafted and executed the marketing phenomenon of the year in 2023.

You won’t want to miss this one! Click here to buy your tickets for RESET for Growth!