Episode #181: Unveiling the Ultimate Barbie Movie Marketing Tactics: Unique Strategies for Viral Success!
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Are you dreaming about Barbie yet? This week we do a deep dive into the marketing that has continually been going viral since April of this year. We explore how the iconic doll brand also became a digital marketing icon by creating trends, and making marketing moves that will go down in toy history. Get ready to dive into the world of Barbie and her groundbreaking marketing team for the highly anticipated live-action film, releasing on July 21st, 2023.
Over the past five years, marketing strategies across all industries have shifted to social media platforms, leading big brands to market on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads. But how does a brand stand out amidst the constant scroll? Barbie's team seems to have the answer, embracing iconic partnerships and leveraging the signature pink and femme essence of the Barbie brand.
In this episode, your host Azhelle Wade, a toy industry expert, takes you on a journey through some of the most successful Barbie marketing efforts deployed in recent years. She breaks down how you can apply similar concepts to your own toy business, regardless of whether you're an aspiring toy entrepreneur with limited funds or a toy executive looking for creative marketing ideas.
From the Barbie Selfie Generator that went viral on Instagram to the Barbie Xbox Controller collaboration with Forza Horizon, and the immersive Barbie World Experience, you'll discover the power of creating unique, Instagrammable moments that captivate your audience and build a sense of brand ownership among consumers.
So get ready to learn from Barbie's marketing playbook and discover how these marketing moves can inspire and elevate your toy business. Whether you're a toy startup or an established toy company, this episode will provide you with valuable insights on how to engage and captivate your target audience like never before.
So grab your headphones and get ready to dive in.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
[02:10] The Rise of Social Media Marketing: Discover how Barbie's marketing team mastered social media and gorilla marketing in the digital age.
[03:25] Barbie Selfie Generator: Learn how the iconic Barbie selfie generator went viral on Instagram and engaged audiences with personalized Barbie movie posters.
[06:00] McDonald's India Best Use Case: Uncover how McDonald's India creatively used the Barbie AI app to promote their Big Mac with a Barbie movie twist.
[14:06]Barbie Malibu Cafe: Explore how the Barbie Malibu Cafe created an Instagrammable and immersive experience for fans, and how you can do the same for your brand.
[22:07] Themed Airbnb for Your Brand: Discover how Barbie's Dreamhouse Airbnb listing allowed fans to experience the world of Barbie in real life and how you can do something similar.
[28:10] Barbie Going Viral: Observe the power of organic marketing as Barbie-related content goes viral, demonstrating the impact of social media on brand engagement.
[34:05] Do Your Homework: Pick one of the Barbie marketing tactics discussed and start planning how you can apply it to your brand.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Create your own AI Filter via Meta Spark Studio
How To Create Gifs For Your Brand
Branded Wraps For XBox and More
To rent out a space for a photoshoot event. Check out Peerspace.
To learn more about The Toy Coach Showcase @ ASTRA, listen to these episodes:
Sources:
https://www.kimp.io/barbie-movie/
https://twitter.com/barbiethemovie/status/
https://stylecaster.com
https://www.kimp.io/barbie-movie/#ga276bf089a3dselfie-generator/
https://news.airbnb.com/barbies-malibu-dreamhouse-is-back-on-airbnb-but-this-time-kens-hosting/
https://losangeles.theworldofbarbie.com/
https://www.theworldofbarbie.com/
https://www.fox29.com/news/life-size-barbie-world-attraction-launching-summer-2022
https://bucketlisters.com/search-results?s=barbie%20cafe
https://www.theworldofbarbie.com/
https://www.fox29.com/news/life-size-barbie-world-attraction-launching-summer-2022
https://news.airbnb.com/barbies-malibu-dreamhouse-is-back-on-airbnb-but-this-time-kens-hosting/
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/06/26/xbox-barbie/?ocid=Parterships_soc_omc_xbo_ig_Photo_lrn_6.26.1
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Finally, the mega marketing move to end all marketing moves. The move that had Twitter user at medium-sized Meech exclaim quote, what is the budget for the Barbie movie You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, episode number 📍 181. Hey there, toy people. Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. This week on the podcast, I wanted to dive into an icon of the toy industry in the doll category. Not just Barbie, but Barbie's iconic marketing team for this movie. Over the past five years, marketing dollars in all industries has shifted from traditional channels to social media. Big brands are now marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, and it's getting to the point where ad costs are soaring
and even when you have the money to spend, it's hard to stand out when you're just a thumb movement away from a scroll by. So how else can your brand market itself these days? What is the gorilla marketing of the digital age? Well, Barbie's team certainly seems to have a handle on it by creating iconic partnerships and leaning into the iconic pink and femme nature of the Barbie brand. Now we all know and are excited that the live action film will lend in theaters in just a few days on July 21st, 2023.
So here's the purpose of this episode. By the end of this episode, you are gonna know some of the most popular Barbie marketing efforts that have been going on throughout their campaign. We're gonna dive into how they were deployed by the Barbie marketing team ahead of the Barbie movie, and then we're gonna break down how you could apply a similar concept to your business. So this is gonna be great if you're a toy entrepreneur. You've got limited funds, you wanna get creative, you wanna see how you can make a splash like the Barbie movie did.
But also, if you're a toy executive, you're working for a larger toy company, you are likely to get ideas on how you can get creative with your company's marketing as well. Okay. Are you ready? I hope so. Let's dive in.
Everyone was excited about the Barbie trailer when it was first released. Even the CEO of Mattel talked about the excitement on his social media, and the real excitement really started when Barbie themed movie posters were released, giving insight that this movie wouldn't just be about that one typical blonde Barbie and Ken, right?
Along with the release of those posters that showed all the different actors that would be a part of this film.
Mattel also released a Barbie selfie generator that took Instagram by storm in April of 2023, the selfie generator featured the iconic Mattel Barbie Seal. Glitzed out in hot pink with a Barbie logo in white. Over top users could upload a photo of themselves and then instantly brand themselves a Barbie to go along with the movie's overall campaign that everyone is a Barbie, just a different type of Barbie with different characteristics, skills, or interests.
The echoes of the Barbie rebrand Mattel had been vamping up for years by creating barbies of various body types, hair colors, and more. Really was present here. Now how this generator worked was users would go to Barbie selfie.ai, upload their photo, and a filter would be applied to it, and the users were allowed to update what kind of Barbie they are.
Then they could generate a mock Barbie movie poster with their image and their own custom tagline following heavy movie promotion of Margot Robbie and her fellow Barbies. The filter went live and subsequently went viral in the early days of the films release, people were teasing and joking that they'd been cast in the Barbie movie since the poster generated had the ability to look so real.
And not only did in influencers get in on doing these movie posters, but so did celebrities most via media outlets. Putting in celebrities photos for them. So companies like Style Caster, Mercedes and even H B O used the Barbie filter to showcase characters from their movies hot Topic celebs with the this Barbie tagline.
Edited to match the story of their show or general societal consensus of that celebrity. At the time, Gwyneth Paltrow's skiing case was all over the news and a Barbie poster was made of her stating that this Barbie lost a half day skiing while the lead actor from the last of us received a tagline saying This, Ken is Zaddy,
now opening up the brand for AI marketing that anyone could use in any way is a little scary there. There definitely was some dark humor that was created with that Barbie filter, but it still only resulted in more PR for the brand. There were jokes that Megan, the AI robot from the hit movie this year would also be in the Barbie movie when a poster was released of her as a Barbie. Even when things came out with this filter that once went against the brand identity, it didn't damage the brand somehow, it really just made it more socially relevant.
So why did this work? Well, the company. In essence, let the audience take center stage in redefining Barbie. They didn't just create content and they didn't just tell the world what Barbie was. They created a trend, an opportunity for people to engage with the brand and make the brand their own.
Now, the winner for corporate. Applications of this Barbie AI app, in my opinion, was McDonald's India, which posted their Big Mac in the Barbie movie poster with a tagline. This Barbie is getting everyone excited and adjusting the colors of the brand to match their own brand colors, but keeping the same general aesthetic of the AI filter and still fitting in with the media trend.
Now all of the links to. All the examples I'm talking about, you can find over@thetoycoach.com slash 1 8 1.
Let's break this down cuz there's two sides we wanna break down here. If you are a larger toy company and you wanted to figure out like why this worked, should we do something like this?
Pay attention to the freedom that the brand allowed creators to have with it. That allowed society to define what Barbie meant to them and who Barbie is.
As we know with licenses, that's not common, right? Just with a manufacturer holding a license, you are often restricted severely by what you can do with this license.
But this marketing team really took liberties and allowed the Barbie brand to be taken over and evolved by the society that loves her so much. Now, if you are an aspiring, you know, entrepreneur, or you're still starting out and you wanna create your own AI filter to, and you can't afford a custom website like the one Mattel has for Barbie, you can spend a day or two and teach yourself how to use something called Meta Spark Studio.
So you can create your own AR filter. Now, meta has a few templates and use them as is. And that would be the easiest way to start. They have a few games, a few things. You could just add your logo, add your colors, add your characters to, but they also have a few educational videos to get you started in building something on your own.
So check out the links in the podcast episode, the toy coach.com/ 1 8 1. For the details on that, now, there is another alternative to creating a digital graphic that your consumers can sort of selfie with to promote your brand, and that's something I've covered before in this podcast called Gifts and Stickers.
I did a podcast episode all about gifts. They're super easy to make, and if you can use Illustrator or Canva and you've already some got some graphics of the characters of your brand or even photos of your brand characters cut out from a white background, you can make a GIF for your brand that will show up on Facebook.
Instagram, various other social platforms for your consumers to add to their stories, their posts, or even add into reels. So I'm going to encourage you to head over and listen to that episode to deep dive into gifts and the world of gifts. You can get hundreds of thousands of views on gifts of your character saying things like Happy Birthday, happy Monday.
So really consider that as an. Easier way to create an AR experience for your consumers. And again, the link to that episode, I'll also link in the show notes for today. So you can just go to the toy coach.com/ 1 8 1.
I'll put everything there for you now, once you create this filter or you create this gif for your brand, you've gotta mobilize your existing users to actually use what you're creating. You've got to encourage them or incentivize them in some way to give that filter or gif a boost to see if it has legs or can create a trend.
When Barbie's movie poster came out, the cast shared their movie posters, and so they. Created the hype for people wanting to be a part of that movie, and then following the share of their own movie posters, the AI app came out. So then all of a sudden there was this opportunity for the general audience to create their own posters and be part of that cool club.
For your own AI filter creation or your own gift creation, consider how you could also lean into a signature tagline that your customer can customize and personalize for themselves, so that when they're posting about your brand with your filter with your gift, that they're not just, being an ambassador for your brand, but they're being an ambassador for themselves.
That's what's really important. That's the key here. All right, so let's move on. The next marketing effort we've gotta highlight is the Barbie Xbox controller. So the demand and interest in video games sparked even higher in recent years. The first spike started due to the pandemic.
We were all inside, obviously needed to play some games and then stayed elevated with the rise of this streamer culture the introduction of AI and AR integrations and Hyperrealistic game graphics just keep adding to this growth for video gaming.
According to investors observer.com, the video gaming industry is expected to grow at a kegar of about 10% between 2022 and 2030. Over 3 billion people will play video games in 2023. Now, according to the Entertainment Software Association in the US, 164 million adults play video games. The largest percentage of gamers.
38% are aged between 18 and 34. So this Barbie marketing effort and partnership with Xbox seems to be a strategic targeted effort to connect with Kid Dot who might have grown up playing with Barbie. Not only did the Barbie team do. A co-brand creating custom Barbie Xbox controller face plates in pink, zebra stripe, nineties abstract, and a pink Barbie pattern.
But the Barbie marketing team didn't stop there. They also created in game content for a racing game called Forza Horizon. So what content did they create? Well, they recreated Barbie's pink, 1956 Chevrolet Corvette, and Ken's 2022 G M C, Hummer of cores. So every player.
A Forza Horizon five could download these cars for free from the in-game messenger while playing the game with their custom Xbox Barbie controllers. Wild. So let's talk about how you can do this. How you may be thinking a gel. How in the world can I replicate a marketing campaign like this one? I cannot do that.
Well, hold on. I did some research for you, and yes you can.
Okay. While creating custom in-game content for a popular Xbox game may be a stretch. If you don't have the Barbie pull, we still have a possibility to have mods or skins designed to fit specific gaming consoles. How? Let me tell you, there are services like Skin IT or wraps, what that will allow you to create a custom Xbox controller and consoles skin of your very own.
So wraps.com features and. Easy design tool where you can upload your own images, add text and color to your custom designs, and a custom skin will run you about 13 Euros. This is a, a UK based website, it'll cost you about 13 euros including shipping.
Your custom artwork will be printed on a vinyl sticker and shipped directly to you. The service provider wraps actually does more than just Xbox controllers. They wrap MacBook, iPads, dozens of iPhone types. Again, for the links to all of these resources, I'm given the toy coach.com/ 1 8 1 is your place to be. All right, let's move on to the next marketing move from the Barbie team, the Malibu Barbie Cafe. On April 19th I received an email announcement that tickets to the Malibu Barbie Cafe were on sale.
I was hyped. The cafe aimed to transport visitors to Malibu, California with quote. Optimistic Barbie colors laid back, beachy motifs, and lots of retro glam. The cafe promised a Tasty Barbie theme menu, an Instagramable Barbie sized doll box. Delicious desserts and a cafe shop. Filled with exclusive merchandise.
Originally, the cafe was meant to be a limited engagement, so I jumped at the chance to reserve tickets as soon as the door opened. The Barbie team partnered with bucket listers.com to sell tickets to the event, which was a smart move as they already have the whole event ticketing system in place. As you book a seat at the cafe, you're prompted to select your main meal from the menu sides, and drinks can be purchased off menu when you get there, but the main dishes you've gotta order ahead of time.
Presumably they're doing this to manage inventory. I'm guessing they're in a pop-up space with not having a full proper kitchen. So you're also warned after booking that if you arrive late, You won't be seated. An extra bit of information that stressed me out unnecessarily the day that I was visiting the Barbie Malibu Cafe.
Now there was a lot of marketing hype around this cafe, and with the strict rules on timing, I expected the cafe to be packed with nostalgic toy people. But when I attended on opening week, the popup was fairly empty. We were able to stay beyond our two hour reservation limit with no problem at all. The food was great.
Decor truly transported you to this nineties beach town vibe, and all of the attendees were dressed in bright Barbie core colors, and after leisurely wrapping up snapping photos in the Barbie box and on the faux beach.
We began to think that we didn't really need the reservation at all. But interestingly enough, while leaving the pop-up, we overheard a couple who stumbled across the cafe, noticed that it was a little empty and popped in to request a table, but they couldn't get one. They returned away and told it was reservation only.
Even though were there were so many tables available. Now I live in NYC for an NYC restaurant. You've gotta have at least one area of your restaurant that's open for walk-ins, unless you're one of those notorious spots that just do not allow for walk-ins. But that is just what New York City's vibe is all about.
We're all about the walk-in it's part of New York City charm, even if there is a wait. So this Barbie theme dining experience was perfect for media stories, influencer, social media posts. There were corners for photo ops branding. Everywhere I watched as a creative cocktail was served in a Barbie car and once the adults of the table pulled their cocktail out of the car, the kid with them just started playing with the Barbie car.
It was just hilarious. What is so clever about this Barbie pop-up is that the Barbie movie marketing team created an as. Nostalgic experience for parents that they could also bond with their kids in a really clever move to drive interest in the brand. For younger kids that, may not be as diehard of fans like those who grew up in the eighties and nineties.
So real quickly, how can you do something like this? How can you create an experience, an Instagrammable moment like this Azhelle you're thinking, I can't rent out a whole venue and I can't, you know, set up a whole restaurant and I can't, and I wanna tell you, I don't wanna hear these cans.
Okay? What you can do is to create an experience wherever you are showing your product. Now a great example of this is my own Toy Coach Showcase that I recently held at the Astra Marketplace and Academy. So we all know what toy trade shows are.
We all know what the common booth designs are and what they look like. But hey, I wanted to do something different and created a pink carpet experience, which was very Instagramable. It looked like a movie premiere. People walked down the pink carpet, took photos of themselves at the showcase, and it creates an Instagrammable moment and an experience as you finish your walk down the pink carpet.
You were given a popcorn bag treat to take away with you as a thank you for visiting the booth. Essentially attending the movie premiere so you can create an experience for any events that you put on for your product, whether you are having a fundraising event or if you're attending a trade show.
Just think about the experience that people that come up to you are having and what you want them to feel when they walk away. All right, let's move on.
The World of Barbie. An immersive and interactive experience in la. This is an original event organized by Mattel, and in this experience, visitors can visit the iconic Barbie Dreamhouse, play in a ball pit version of Barbie's pool.
Check out a Museum of Barbie dolls over the decades. Chill in a life-sized version of the Barbie Dream camper and climb aboard the Barbie intergalactic rocket. Grab a mic, record a song in the Barbie Sound Studio. And if you're not much of a a singer, there's an option to drum along to the beat of the music.
And for attendees 18 and over, they have a special event called Sips After Sunset, where you can enjoy themed beverages and bites and dance the night away in your most. Fabulous Barbie core. Now based on the world of barbie.com, there seems to be pink carpet nights and movie days planned for the Barbie World experience, now if all of that wasn't enough, you can also have your hair styled like a Barbie. The world of Barbie experience takes about an hour. to enjoy. There's no age requirement, and the link to sign up will be in my episode page. Tickets start at $34. So let's break this down for us.
You know, aspiring toy entrepreneurs. How can you apply this to your world? How can you do this? Now, if this seems familiar to some of you as what was offered in the Barbie Malibu Cafe? Well, that's because it is, in my research, I found a news release from Fox 29 announcing Barbie World back in May of 2022. And it seems like the Barbie marketing team planned to open up a Barbie world in Toronto, New York, Chicago, Houston, and la. But today we only see the the Barbie world experience in LA with Barbie cafes open in New York and Chicago.
So I'm assuming the original idea kind of morphed and changed and turned into something different due to space and time and probably budget constraints. So again, if you wanna apply a concept like this, like Barbie world, think about applying some of these tactics in your own trade shows.
So, if you have a booth, how can you create an experience, a world experience of your brand in your booth? Oh, a great example of who does this and who does this right in the toy industry is Angie Cella of Binger. At Angie's booth, no matter where she is. She has a full on glam experience where attendees can sit and get their hair done. They've got lights around their face and a. And they essentially feel like they're in a salon and it feels very special and glitzy. That is an experience that you can create like this world of Barbie or the Malibu Cafe.
Finally, the mega marketing move to end all marketing moves. The move that had Twitter user at medium-sized Meech exclaim quote, what is the budget for the Barbie movie end quote?
On June 27th, it was announced that Barbie's Dreamhouse was coming to real life on Airbnb. Ken was inviting guests to stay at their dreamhouse, which had been Ken Ified. There are Ken blow up letters in the pool. His closet is open. Guests are invited to be on the disco dance floor.
This is a real free listing on Airbnb, which you can go check out. Head over to the toy coach.com/ 1 8 1. I'll share the link. Scroll down to the mention in this episode area for that link. Now, when you read about this space, it's a description written by Ken himself. It says, welcome to my kendo. While Barbie is away, she's handed over the keys to her Malibu dream house this summer, and my room could be yours for the night.
I've added a few touches to bring some much needed Kenner to the newly renovated. And iconic Malibu Dreamhouse placed perfectly above the beach with panoramic views. This life-sized toy pink mansion is a dream come true. Now, the booking window opens July 21st and July 22nd at 10:00 AM and only one two night stays are gonna be available.
Plus there's a max of two guests During your stay, you'll be taking a spin through Ken's awesome wardrobe. Or your best beach fit, you'll be able to do line dancing on Ken's outdoor disco dance floor. Plus, take home a piece of memorabilia. Now there's no kitchen access, there's no tv, no washer, no everyday essentials included with this. Day, travel's not included, but they do arrange for meals upon your arrival. Now again, a two guest max with a 4:00 PM check-in and an 11:00 AM checkout.
What could possibly be the equivalent of a themed Airbnb for your brand? Well, I put some thought into this. I didn't wanna leave you hanging, so I'm thinking, how about a themed photo shoot? Because let's be real. The whole purpose of anyone wanting to win a night in this Barbie dreamhouse is for the amazing photo and videos that they'll be taking while there.
So how can we translate that? How can we translate that need, that desire into something that we can do as startups, right? Well, photo shoots, everyone always loves a good family photo or just a self photo opportunity, a chance to snag a great, fun new headshot.
Now if you go to a site like peerspace.com, you can search through hundreds of photo studios and find one that best aligns with your brand aesthetic. Now, don't stop there. Deck out that studio. Bring props, temporary walls, inflatable furniture, or real furniture, whatever you need to transform that photo booth space into a brand experience of your very own.
Everything in that space should be designed so that your ideal target market wants to take a photo with it around it in front of it and show their friends and family. So let's talk examples. I know you might have a hard time imagining this one, so I wanna give some examples. I have a student who has a product called Gnome on the Rome.
The purpose of this little Nome is to travel with your family and pop up around the world on all your family vacations. Kind of like Elf on the shelf, but all year round. So a Gnome on the Rome photo shoot day could have nos. Everywhere, like hundreds of gnomes. And then there could be areas themed, like popular travel destinations.
So families that take part in this photo shoot can can go into the space and see the Paris corner and say, Hey, let's take a photo in the Paris setup because that reminds us of our first family vacation. . And then while they're taking the photo, they'll say, oh look, the Gnome on the Rome is in the forefront of that shot with us.
Now Peerspace rooms start at $39 per hour at nyc. Super affordable. So I'm sure you can find something that fits your budget. Now imagine hosting a photo shoot experience and having a limited number of free photo shoot time slots that your ideal customer can book.
You can post about your branded photo shoot on various public event sites like meetup.com, eventbrite.com, Facebook event pages, and even your local community pages. Make sure you give it a fun name. If you were my student with Gnome on the Rome, I'd call it something like Family on the Rome photo Shoot. A free Gnome on the Rome experience designed to help families recapture their most treasured memories across the country and globe . Now, here's some more tips. If you decide to run something like this, get yourself an assistant, someone who during the shoot can tag behind the scenes shots of everything going on. Post them and tag the family involved in that. Shoot the final photos. Of course, you'll deliver it to them and you'll put it in your brand stories.
But things these days are very immediate. So if you can give that family something, they can show their friends right away, you're gonna increase the likelihood that they're gonna share it and get more engagement behind it. Be sure to tag whoever participates in an event like this, because the marketing is really why it's free for them, because that is what you're paying for. Tagging them in these behind the scenes photos the day of also makes it really easy for them to reshare that content with their friends and family with minimal effort. Now, 24 hours later, you've gotta do this quickly.
Time is of the essence. Make sure you're sharing photos from that branded experience with easy to follow instructions for tagging your brand with every post. And even consider giving them a swag bag, a pawn departure, so you can create that Malibu Barbie Dream House experience that they have on Airbnb for much less, but still with impact.
I now, I was going to end this episode here, but a couple of other really incredible Barbie marketing pieces have come out, and I'm just gonna call this section Barbie Go and Viral.
What's really interesting is watching brands use social media in an organic way. And what that means is when they post something or they create an experience that isn't pre marketed, or they post something that isn't pre marketed, but they know it has the ability to go viral.
So most recently I saw , a group of construction workers in quotes, came into a Five Guys and they started playing the Barbie theme song on saxophones. Now I've got no proof. I haven't done a deep dive on this. I have no proof that this was a planned marketing effort, but it sure seems like one, a gorilla marketing effort to create a viral moment that would be videotaped and talked about on social media.
Like it was. Further we see due debt with sign a popular Instagram account holding up a sign that says, Barbie Marketing Team deserves a raise.
Not only is that promoting the movie, but it's promoting the efforts of the movie, very meta.
And then further we see. Marketing coming directly from sources like amc. AMC emails often about new movies and it seems like the Barbie movie. Reserved the subject line space of their latest email that said, Hey Barbies, time to get tickets with two pink hearts.
The branding is everywhere. To create a movement like this, somebody had to have decided we are gonna let loose and we're not going to freak out if something looks a little off brand or if some user creates something that's a little off brand because we want this to be huge.
And that is my biggest lesson from watching what the Barbie marketing team has done. And I'm very curious how this might affect the way people treat licenses moving forward. Licenses, especially popular licenses in the toy industry are always protected with such careful attention to detail. If you are a manufacturer developing a license product, you don't wanna mess up. Anything about this character. And while that may stay intact and stay that way for manufacturing physical product, I'm seeing the reins loosen a little bit as far as marketing that product, because the Barbie movie team has proven that if you let go of the reigns a little bit, The general society can come in and take your marketing to the next level.
They can make it their own, and that's how they make it go viral.
Before I jump into my summary of today's episode, I'd like to give a shout out to Natalie Vu. . Thank you so much for your review, Natalie. Natalie says, best podcast on the toy industry out there. Okay, Natalie. Thank you. Natalie says, quote, I'm so grateful to have Azhelle's podcast as my companion in my toy journey to enter the toy industry.
Azhelle is so generous with her content and advice. She knows exactly what are our challenges and works systematically to support us tackle those challenges. I'm inspired every time I get to listen to her podcasts on my drives. Thank you Azhelle. You've created an amazing community and helped so many keep being awesome and quote, I got chills reading that.
Natalie, thank you so much. Ah, thank you so much. That was so lovely. You know, I really love hearing that because years ago someone told me I would once. Help a lot of people. And I remember at the time I was working, you know, as a toy designer and I remember thinking, how could I help people? I literally just designed toys that will never happen. This person has no idea what she's talking about. I can't help anyone. So seeing this, Natalie, wow, really? Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Action item. Let's get to our work to do for next week. I want you to send me a message on Instagram and tell me that you've got it done.
I'm serious. You guys aren't sending me enough messages on Instagram. I think you feel like it's a fake invitation, but it's really not. I am on Instagram all the time, so seriously, I. Send me a message on Instagram and tell me that you got this work done. You could even tag me in a story showing that you got it done, and I will share your story.
I will cheer you on. So here's the homework. I want you to pick any one of these marketing tactics that I broke down today. We can recap them really, really quick. So marketing tactic number one. Had to do with creating an AR filter for your brand, and I gave you the option of creating a gift for your brand instead. And not only creating it, but promoting it to people that already love your brand and getting them to use it, incentivizing them to use it.
And then marketing option number two. Custom wraps for tech. So we talked specifically about Xbox controllers, but I gave you two resources that will allow you to create custom wraps for iPhones, phone cases, or Xbox controllers. Now our third and fourth marketing example from Barbie was the Barbie Malibu Cafe and the world of Barbie Barbie immersive and interactive experience.
So if you choose those, the example here is to cr. Is to think about how you can create more of an experience when you exhibit your products at trade shows. Think about what you can add to your trade show experiences so that it's actually an experience for your attendees, not just you showing them the product, right? . And then the example number five was the Barbie Dream House. How can you recreate that? We talked about you being able to create a photo shoot experience that your I T M, your ideal target market could sign up for for free, and they would get a photo shoot with your product everywhere, but also an experience that really relates to your product and to your i t M. Now your homework. Is to choose one of those marketing tactics,
and start making a plan for how you could apply it to your brand. Let me know, gel. I chose this marketing tactic number two, and I am in the process of building whatever, and I'm gonna have it done by this date. And once you get it done, definitely share a story. Tag me in that story, and I would love to share that as well.
Okay? Again, if you want all of the sources for this episode, if you want the links, Forward this episode, which I know you do. Go to the toy coach.com/ 1 8 1.
Next week we're gonna have a Barbie History podcast episode because I know by then you will have watched the Barbie movie and you're gonna want some more information on her. So we're gonna have that for you next week.
As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me here today. I know that your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later, 📍 toy people.
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