Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, said her original inspiration back in the 1950’s was to show girls that they had choices and didn’t have to be what others wanted them to be just because of their outward appearance. So if Barbie was a real person and not a doll, how would she react to moms’ perceptions?

Our idea was that we needed to speak on her behalf, recover her persona and take her back to an image that didn’t focus on looks. Most of all, we would need to make moms feel good about allowing their children to play with the dolls. We wanted them to see that Barbie is a canvas that moms can used to expand her children’s imaginary play, rather than limit possibilities. In turn, the brand could show them all the possibilities open to them in life.

Moms were first introduced to Barbie’s fresh image in a brand video where girls were pictured in a number of professional roles including professor and veterinarian. We later see that these scenarios are fantasies the young girls are playing out with their Barbie dolls. Videos highlight scenarios of young girls imagining their future with no limitations, making it nearly impossible to disagree with the power of Barbie imagination play.

We made the video available on YouTube and seeded it across social media, with a heavy focus on Facebook, the top social media site among U.S. moms. Organic posts from our brand’s handles and paid promoted activity gained huge momentum for the campaign.

We continued to gain scale through blogger and influencer support, native site integrations and earned PR activity. Only later, did we finally launch the video with mass media, including TV and cinema in relevant programming to moms.

We changed perceptions of Barbie and delivered on her creator’s vision. We empowered moms to fuel their children’s imaginations through Barbie play by inspiring girls to discover all the things they can become.

“Imagine the Possibilities” improved Barbie’s brand sentiment with an increase of +30% in how positively people viewed the brand on social media. We reached over 13 million people on social alone with 42 million impressions, resulting in nearly 220,000 actions and engagements

We delivered over 50 million views of the video and 1.2 Million shares. Within the first weeks of launch, “Imagine the Possibilities” became the #1 video ad on YouTube in October 2015 with 12.4 million views. Compared to Mattel Barbie video benchmarks, viewers watched 26% longer

Plus, changing perceptions resulted in a double digit sales increase in Q4 2015 – the first quarter Barbie saw growth in over three years.