One of the most important elements of our campaign was the women we cast. A powerful trio of Barbies, with unique personalities, aesthetics and most importantly hair. We wanted our models to be true Barbie fans and to embrace the campaign message as much as we did.
The message was simple, we wanted to remind women that ‘you can be exactly who you want to be’. And while, skipping off to the Malibu dream house and being a dolphin trainer before tea might be a tad, out of reach - creativity & imagination are right there for the taking.
Stepping onto set - with a knot of anxious excitement in my stomach - the power of pink literally was something else. I’ve never seen so much pink on set in my life. Afterwards, I saw an article saying stocks of pink paint had run out following Barbie - and I think we definitely had a part to play in that.
We had two sets running concurrently - just to make life even more interesting- one for stills and one for video, with the ground floor dedicated to hair, makeup and styling. The models had two hair looks each one demonstrating the product in use - as we can’t forget about the Barbie brush itself - and then a more playful creative look inspired by 90s unapologetic femininity.
Post-production as always was a blur of feedback rounds and sign-off, each stage I would ensure we had internal feedback and then I would coordinate sign-off with Mattel for each of the assets. Speaking to the people at actual Barbie HQ wasn’t something I ever thought I’d end up doing, but over weekly catch-up calls and sign-off rounds, we got everything over the line in time.
As always I’ve rambled on enough. Four whole blog posts to be exact. So if you’re still here - I take my hat off to you - and without any more waffle. Enjoy the Totally Pink Campaign video…