It is almost impossible to escape the bright pink posters signalling the imminent release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie. The film represents the Mattel doll’s first live-action film appearance and has successfully captured the cultural zeitgeist as millennials flock to post their best Barbie-inspired outfits on TikTok (videos featuring the Barbiecore hashtag have more than 570 million views).
The buzz that the film has generated is no coincidence – Mattel’s Barbie division has spent $100m on marketing this year, according to Media Radar. It also marks the first major step in the company’s business transformation from toy maker to an intellectual property-driven outfit.
This new vision for the business was set out by Ynon Kreiz, who became Mattel’s CEO in 2018. The year prior, the company had made an operating loss of more than $339m and the bankruptcy of Toys ‘R’ Us was cited in Mattel’s financial results as having had a “significant impact” on its revenue. In response, Kreiz’s long-term strategy shifted away from retail and towards capturing the “full value of Mattel's IP through franchise management”.