Reviewing the 60+ years of Barbie’s evolution, why has this brand been so popular for so many years?

2. The product bears the mark of the times: Barbie’s controversy and long-term popularity

Since the birth of the first Barbie in a black and white striped swimsuit in 1959, Mattel has continuously launched new doll images. Their identities are different, including boyfriend Ken, as well as fashion editors, nurses, stewardesses, etc. who appear as friends.

The starting point of her birth was to "let little girls be whoever they want to be." So when she became a surgeon, only 9% of doctors in the United States were women; even in 1965, an astronaut Barbie was born, nearly 20 years earlier than Sally Ride became the first American woman to enter space on the Challenger space shuttle in 1983.

Gradually, Barbie is no longer just the name of a doll, but has become a synonym for this category.

But Barbie's subsequent development was not as smooth as her cold start. In the next sixty or seventy years, this image was repeatedly attacked by public opinion.

Barbie's sales first fell in the 1970s, when the second wave of feminism in the United States was booming. Feminists pointed out that Barbie was the first standard of beauty that many women were exposed to, and that the image actually promoted " unrealistic body image and outdated gender stereotypes."

For example, Barbie's standard measurements are 90cm/62cm/89cm. If she were a real woman, her body fat would not even be enough for menstruation. Someone once tried to restore Barbie in 3D, but the doll's head fell to the ground because the neck was too thin.

For example, in the diet manual that comes with a certain model of Barbie, you can see a suggestion - don't eat.

Radical feminism believed that Barbie was a product of patriarchy’s objectification of women, and “Refuse to Become Barbie” became a slogan at the time.

In response to the periodic decline in sales, Mattel began to actively invite major fashion brands to create high-end clothing series for Barbie in the 1980s. Partners include: Dior, Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, Vera Wang, Giorgio Armani, Celine, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent and so on.

This move greatly increased Barbie's potential, won Barbie exposure and reputation, and made Barbie culture popular all over the world.

In recent years, Barbie has been continuously expanding the diversity of its IP images. For example, in 2016, Mattel launched "The Doll Evolves" series, creating three body shapes: Curvy, Tall and Petite, as well as seven skin colors, 22 eye colors, and 24 hairstyles, in order to break away from the stereotyped perfect Barbie doll image of the past.

By 2018, Mattel launched more Role Models, using more than 200 job types to encourage girls to break career ceilings. As the Barbie website wrote: "By introducing girls to the stories of women from all walks of life, they begin to see that they have more opportunities."

The diversification strategy worked. In 2021, with the demand for staying at home due to the epidemic, Mattel sold 86 million dolls from the Barbie family, equivalent to 164 dolls sold every minute.

Faced with the competition for children's attention on the Internet, Barbie has encountered the decline in performance that all toy companies are facing, so Barbie is also going further and further on the road of film and television. The live-action movie "Barbie" officially announced in 2019 was finally released this year. Generally speaking, a toy company is considered successful if it can survive for 3-5 years. Barbie has been popular for more than 60 years and has become the embodiment of the American dream to some extent.

3. How can brands/IPs find the best medicine to resist time?

Whenever a cross-era IP reappears, most people attribute its popularity to "feelings". But Daofa believes that if an IP can stand the test of time and become the feelings of a generation, there must be a stronger core behind it.

Feelings can be consumed, but they can also be easily drained. Fashion trends keep changing, so how can we be remembered? Barbie's answer is to become a cultural symbol, or even a mark of an era.

In the 65 years since its creation, Barbie has sold more than 1 billion pieces and has been sold in 150 countries around the world. She was once questioned and resisted for her overly perfect image, but eventually became a symbol of women's freedom and independence. Barbie's image has gradually matured with the development of the times, and has also accompanied the growth of a generation, becoming the embodiment of their ideals.

Whether you are building a brand or an IP, you can get inspiration from Barbie's story. In terms of specific operation methods, Daofa summarizes three methodologies that are applicable to most brands/IPs.

1. Find the mood of the times and create a distinctive image

When talking about brand positioning, we can’t avoid asking three soul-searching questions: Who am I? Who do I exist for? Why buy me?

Barbie's distinctive image is obvious to all, and her popularity is more due to the mood of the times. She knows who she was born for, and she also creates enough reasons for people to take her home.

Barbie was born in 1959, at the beginning of the second wave of feminism. Many women began to leave their families, receive higher education, and become professional women. Compared with traditional toy dolls, Barbie freed girls from the roles of "mother" and "caregiver" for the first time, and just let them "be a girl".

2. Open your mind to co-brand and give the spiritual core a material carrier

To convey the brand's values ​​and spiritual core, a certain material carrier is needed. On the one hand, a unique brand expression can be formed through content composed of text, video, etc. On the other hand, the brand concept can be conveyed to more people through joint cooperation.

Since its birth, Barbie has always maintained a highly open attitude towards IP collaborations, and the types of brands it has collaborated with are eclectic, ranging from luxury goods to fast fashion, to cars, jewelry, beauty, personal care, accessories, food... There are more than 100 collaborative brands, and it can be said that everything can be Barbie.

Take the recent period before the release of the movie, for example, Chanel, Versace, Zara, Forever 21 and other brands have launched joint series. Airbnb also recreated a real-life Barbie room on Malibu Beach in California.

These brands draw on the Barbie IP for design inspiration, and the Barbie style continues to this day.

3. Repeat the visual hammer to strengthen the psychological imprint

After the first official poster of the movie "Barbie" was released, it was teased as the poster that "saves the least designer". The entire poster has no other elements except the full screen of Barbie pink. But everyone can recognize it at a glance, it is Barbie.

Author: Siete, Jingmin, WeChat public account: "Knife Skills Research Institute"