Never Before Barbie

The Challenge
Only 16.5% of CEOs are women, 29.7% of management positions are held by women, as are only 24.9% of all board positions. Such inequality is debated across news as it touches a sore point in Australia’s culture of ‘a fair go’. Barbie, as a symbol that ‘You Can Be Anything’, has always shown what girls can be. A pilot, gamer or chef. Roles that woman ‘have’ been before. But she has never represented what girls haven’t been. We wanted to take all the cultural meaning that Barbie represents, and turn her into a weapon to talk about this uncomfortable societal truth. A conversation Mum will respect us for starting.

The Idea
As the saying goes: you can’t be what you can’t see. Our solution to this societal problem and to Barbie’s reputational issues was to create Never Before Barbie - a bespoke, limited-edition range of dolls aimed at inspiring Australian girls to believe they can be anything. These Barbies were visible demonstrations of change and could become a role model for girls to aspire to once again. The dolls were based on six high-profile Australian roles that had never been occupied by a woman, shining a light on the lack of gender diversity in leadership positions across the country and allowing young girls to visualise themselves in these roles. The 6 roles included: Chairperson of the AFL Barbie, Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police Barbie, Governor of the Australian Reserve Bank Barbie, Head of ASIO Barbie, President of the Australian Olympic Committee Barbie, and First Woman on the Moon Barbie.

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Never Before Barbie was born from identifying a conversation that Australians needed to have. Therefore it was only fitting that the campaign was one that was intended to drive conversation through earned media. The campaign was entirely incumbent on embedding earned media principles in to the strategy and execution to spark the conversation we were hoping for, with no traditional above-the-line advertising other than a one-off full page ad. Media and influencer engagement drove the campaign’s significant results.

The Results
Never Before Barbie got Australia talking, with the conversation front of mind for media and consumers nation-wide. The campaign launched with Barbie gracing the front cover of Stellar magazine and STM magazine for the first time in her history. A feature story ran across NewsCorp mastheads.

 Following the launch of the campaign, targeted media and influencer engagement resulted in coverage across all the major free to air network’s breakfast TV programs (Sunrise, TODAY and Studio 10), significant coverage across TV news and further pick up online and on radio.  

In addition, social content featuring Ita Buttrose introduced the campaign and Never Before Barbie roles, extending the discussion and longevity of the campaign, with awareness and conversation around workplace inequality remaining prominent long after the campaign launch.

  • 100 pieces of media and social coverage and 224 syndications

  • Cumulative reach of 28,093,041 (Australian population 24.13m)

  • 97% of content was on-message

  • Significant social discussion, resulting in 44,486 total engagements (comments, shares) at a positive sentiment rate of 98%

  • Equivalent ad value totalling $1,159,371

  • All achieved on a total campaign budget of $221,818, providing Mattel with an ROI of 5:1.

The Awards

  • Bronze Cannes Lion 2018, PR 2018

The Role I Played
I partnered with the creative team to build out the content strategy, and creative that talked to both Mums and kids to drive the performance and connection of the campaign. I also led the social strategy, direction and roll out, as well as managing the social that was responsible for content creation, posting and performance analysis.