Against the bleakest of backdrops, this campaign used media to place the Barbie movie’s positivity and playfulness at the heart of British pop culture – on the streets, on social media, in entertainment, in music, in retail and beyond.

Every media touchpoint was designed to either place the movie – and its trademark Pink – into popular culture or create a moment where the British movie audience could place themselves into the pop culture moment that was being created around the movie.

Looking back on the summer of 2023, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Barbie movie was always destined to be a hit.

But the movie came with ‘baggage’.

Whilst the Barbie brand is nostalgic for all women of all ages, there was a perception that it would be for 6-yr-old girls who played with the dolls.

The Barbie brand itself has also had to work hard to be representative of modern female attitudes.

However, we knew that the movie’s take on feminism and gender roles meant it had broader appeal than was presumed.

It was a genre-defying movie that couldn’t be put in a box – so we set out to make it feel like an unmissable pop culture event for everyone. As the trailer went on to say ‘If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you’.

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The summer of 2023 was looking grey for the UK.

A grey economy and an even greyer weather forecast.

Our summer release competition was also massively male-skewed, with the new Christopher Nolan movie Oppenheimer offering some serious (in every sense of the word) competition on the same release date as Barbie.

In response, we took this as a unique opportunity to be playful in a sea of seriousness.

Not just to make the Barbie movie an unmissable part of the UK’s summer but for its launch campaign to be a source of fun and enjoyment in its own right.

All it needed was some Pink Sky Thinking.

Our strategy aimed to do one thing.

Create a cultural phenomenon by painting the UK pink – an integrated media launch designed to brighten British popular culture across the summer.

We had three rules:

• Always Pink (making it THE colour of the summer in a grey UK)

• Always Positive (no cynicism allowed)

• Always Playful (everything we did should raise a smile and create a small moment of joy in someone’s day)

Every media touchpoint was designed to 1) place the movie – and its trademark Pink – into popular culture or 2) create a moment (in real life or on social media) where the British movie audience could place themselves into the pop culture moment that was being created around the movie.

On the streets we teased the nation with category-defying, unbranded posters and we Barbie-fied British icons, creating pink ‘Black cabs’ and sparkly buses.

Snap Filters allowed Brits to create Barbie land wherever they were, our Barbie Selfie Generator let everyone share their inner Barbie or Ken on social media and people could become Barbie (or Ken) in real-life by stepping into life-sized Barbie boxes.

In Love Island - British TV’s hottest summer show - super fan Margot Robbie scripted and starred in a bespoke TV ad.

In music, we hosted an Album launch influencer listening party with Mark Ronson and took over national dance radio station Kiss.

And in retail, we staged Selfridges takeovers and turned shopping centre lifts into Barbie boxes.

By creating a pop culture phenomenon, brands including Google and Unilever started doing our marketing for us with their own Barbie-fied moments of painting the UK pink.

Barbie had the highest UK launch week awareness of ANY Warner Bros. release in its 100-year history.

The movie delivered a 51% UK over-performance vs US box office (that’s a 51% over performance on its pro rata performance benchmark versus the movie’s performance in its home market).

The campaign delivered a UK Return on Marketing Investment of £23 for every £1 Warner Bros. spent.

The Barbie movie became Warner Bros.’ biggest UK box office release EVER, even exceeding the performance of British institutions like the Harry Potter franchise.

This was a launch campaign that was most definitely #Kenough.