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Barbiemania is also marketing mania. About the many layers in the pink plastic story, and a series of queer moments.

You can’t have missed it: Barbie. She turned 64 this year, but it doesn’t show. Barbiemania has taken on unprecedented proportions and confidence in her success (“her” also on the part of the female director, Greta Gerwig) began long before the premiere. This is how Barbiemania became a PR machine of enourmous size, and a marketing mania.

Entertainment

The fact that a lot of Marketing the Rainbow is being done by the makers of games and toys: whether casually or in your face. Their customers will of course mainly be the GenZ and Millennial generations, the most free-thinking young people ever, so it’s not surprising that there is plenty of diversity to be found. But is it sincere, or is it pinkwashing?

Well: sometimes it’s very pink, but no washing. Barbie is a very good example of that. A combination of toys, film, lots of pink and the rainbow.

Barbiemania

Barbiemania has taken on unprecedented proportions with the movie that recently launched and seems to be breaking all records – starting with the number of times a movie’s title is mentioned in the movie itself (I estimate 750) and the opening weekend of over 350 million dollars. Meanwhile, the film has already grossed more than 1 billion worldwide, making director Greta Gerwig is the first woman to reach that milestone.

There were more than 100 (!) brands that have committed themselves to this spectacle, from Airbnb (Ken offers his room in the iconic Malibu DreamHouse), Burger King (with a pink burger), Crocs and Barbie clothes from Gap, Primark or Forever 21, makeup (NYX Cosmetics and others), to Pinkberry’s Barbie-branded frozen yogurt and a bright pink Xbox. In short, the Merch & PR machine is in full swing: nearly half a million articles about Barbie have been written since January, with 86,000 published in July alone. Of those articles, only 1.4% were about the movie trailer. The rest was PR efforts such as partnerships, local events and celebrity buzz. Ka-ching!

Pink and plastic?

Barbie appears to be mostly pink and plastic, but there are quite a few layers to it that bring up age, gender, roles, and stereotypes. That the film is controversial in many ways can be seen from, among other things, the statement of the right-wing Christian pastor Kent Christmas (what’s in a name) of splinter church “Regeneration Nashville”, who spoke out strongly against the film: “I curse in the name of the Lord this new Barbie movie that is full of transsexuals, transgenders and homosexuals,” he said before calling on God to bring “holy judgment” on the film.

Fox News warned that the film “forgets its core audience in favor of trans agenda and gender themes”. The film was also banned in Kuwait and censored in Lebanon for “promoting homosexuality, rejecting patriarchy, and ridiculing the role of mothers.” However, all that is not so obvious.

Ok, there are no openly gay characters, but there are quite a few queers in the film: Scott Evans (Captain America’s gay brother), Alexandra Shipp, transgender supermodel Hari Nef, Ncuti Gatwa (the new Dr. Who), Kate McKinnon – and various themes, characters, and hidden references (‘Easter Eggs‘). For example, the Kens have a homoerotic musical moment, where the colors of the floor are the same as the trans flag.

Barbie belts out “Closer to Fine” by the lesbian folk duo The Indigo Girls as she drives out of Barbieland in her pink Corvette. And to emphasize this combination of commercial and queer culture, openly gay Grammy winner Brandi Carlie and her wife Catherine cover the song on the expanded edition of the soundtrack.

“CEO” Will Ferrell also emphasizes the gender-neutral toilets that you can find at Mattel. Now, of course, those dolls have no clear gender characteristics, but this applies to the employees and visitors. It’s especially significant because Ferrell’s type of humor is normally appreciated by rednecks who certainly have issues with such toilets: that makes his statement a minor victory.

And there is Al(l)an

“In a world of Barbies and Kens, some people are Allans”. Although Allan was introduced way back in 1964, it wasn’t until 2020 that a tweet went viral that pointed to Allan being labeled as Ken’s “buddy” with a ® after it, as if “buddy” had a different meaning. Things got even more interesting when zoomed in on the illustration of a shirtless Ken and Allan with a rainbow-striped shirt falling open, with Allan’s box saying “all of Ken’s clothes fit him!”

Already two years later, Allan was withdrawn from the market (in a regular clean-up, which also involved the pregnant Midge). He came back with an L less as Alan in 1991 to witness his ‘buddy’ Ken’s wedding (wink, wink).

As for “Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken” which made its debut in 2009 (above right), Mattel said it was referring to the tiny white dog, Sugar. Sure, good rescue. But with a pink collar: Who’s your daddy?

So: plenty of “Marketing the Rainbow” with Barbie and her people.

Mattel has announced 13 more toy movies — from Hot Wheels to Barney and Polly Pocket — and 45 concepts are in development. Join…

Conclusion

Mattel gave Gerwig a free hand (although they actually wanted to cut the scene with the old woman that Barbie called “beautiful”, but Gerwig refused) and that has resulted in a funny and sparkling film. Normalizing queer moments and people contributes to the customer journey “From representation to respect” and also gives younger viewers a glimpse of the rainbow diversity in the world. A 10- for Mattel!

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow. He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Dutch retailer HEMA loves everybody, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, Magnum and the lesbian wedding,  Marketing the Rainbow: the process and all that came before it, Sport and (un)sportmanship,  Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.