Mattel’s new Barbie ad campaign puts focus on her many careers
Mattel’s new ad campaign for Barbie more effectively puts the focus on the doll’s many careers and the professional dreams they can inspire in girls.
“Wow...That made me change my mind on Barbie.”
That sentence, posted by a Facebook user in the comments section beneath a new Barbie doll commercial, probably set off celebratory bells in the advertising department of Mattel, the El Segundo toy maker that has long struggled to do right by modern-day feminists.
Barbie has been walloped by declining sales and steady criticism, particularly for the body-image distortion that her tiny waist and big chest might ingrain in young girls.
Most of the time when Mattel has tried fighting back, the efforts have been bumbling.
In early 2014, for example, Mattel launched a campaign called #Unapologetic, which was meant to rally girls behind the idea that, like all women, Barbie shouldn’t have to apologize for her looks. Let’s just say that marketing strategy didn’t quite strengthen her appeal.
A new ad campaign, however, finally seems to be making Barbie some new friends and repairing her relationship with old ones who had a falling-out.
The commercial, which has been gaining millions of viewers online since its release a couple of weeks ago, more effectively puts the focus on Barbie’s many careers and the professional dreams they can inspire in girls.
It’s almost as though Mattel took notice of a piece last year in Time magazine by Charlotte Alter, in which she wrote:
“The great irony of the Barbie debate is that we spend so much time talking about how she looks and so little time talking about her careers — all 150 of them,” she wrote. “She represents beauty and materialism, sure, but she also represents mutability, imagination and professional possibilities.
“If we took her work life half as seriously as we took her waist measurement, we could use Barbie as a way to talk to girls about the jobs they want, not the bodies they want. Barbie knows how to ask for a promotion, you can give her that.”
The new commercial captures adults’ reactions on hidden camera when young girls appear as their veterinarian, coach, corporate executive and professor.
An ad campaign that features little girls and their leadership dreams? It’s easy to see how that better taps into the imagination of today’s kids and the more discerning consumerism of today’s parents.
Lillian Cunningham is the editor and feature writer for The Washington Post’s ‘On Leadership’ section.
