case study: barbie's fashion week


Celebrating 50 years in 2009, Barbie’s famous face and head-turning style have made her a global brand powerhouse. For five decades, Barbie has inspired girls around the world to dream, discover and celebrate being a girl. And as outlets around the globe turned their attention to Barbie’s milestone year, Mattel Canada wanted to stand out from the crowd and create its own localized news, taking Barbie beyond her famous dream house and pink corvette accessories to elevate her to a Canadian fashion icon.

Working alongside agency partners, GCI developed a year-long integrated campaign with the goal of building Canadian news piece by piece until reaching Barbie’s true birthday celebration in what would likely be her dream locale – on the fashion runway; a true demonstration that Barbie has reached fashion stardom in Canada.

The campaign kicked off with a Barbie Glam tour - a once-in-a-lifetime trip for top Canadian fashion editors to visit Barbie’s headquarters in El Segundo, California. The next step was a survey to discover Canadian’s all-time favourite Barbie doll, where Malibu Barbie made news as the one that one in five Canadians truly adored. Other media drivers included major partnerships with Canadian designers including Foxxy Originals, Cake Beauty, Glenn Dixon, Town Shoes, The Bay and David Dixon, which generated 10-million media impressions. These partnerships were further enhanced with Barbie opening the high-profile LG Fashion Week in Toronto, with Canadian designer David Dixon who brought his new collection, Barbie by David Dixon, to the catwalk in front of a sold-out crowd.

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Results

Most notably, LG Fashion Week had the highest opening night in 10 years with 2,500 in attendance (including Fashion Design Council of Canada guests). GCI Group’s success in generating awareness of Barbie’s 50th birthday amongst Canadian media and consumers is clearly reflected in the quantity and quality of coverage which exceeded expectations. Specifically:

  • 141,294,252 total media impressions
  • More than 50-million media impressions were generated by Barbie Fashion Week coverage alone
  • Double-digit increase of sales of Barbie during campaign period
  • Barbie graced the pages of top Canadian fashion magazines including feature articles Flare, Elle, Fashion and Loulou while simultaneously showing off her celebrity status through coverage on 85 broadcast segments including ET Canada and CTV’s eTalk.

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awards & recognition

3M Privacy Filters, "Canadians Love to Spy"
 2009 Ovation Award of Merit for Brand Communications, IABC

3M Command Campus Tour, "Save the Walls"
 2008 Award of Excellence, CPRS

Belkin, "A Streetcar Named Inspire"
 2008, Silver Award of Excellence, Special Events Category, CPRS