I hope everyone had a lovely May! I know I did, I had a lot to enjoy and celebrate. I’m not at DISC this week so I have no work to show or any updates really, been spending time outside and with loved ones. But that won’t stop me from talking about my favourite design trends, advertising, and social media news!
In the world of advertising, Barbie has taken over AGAIN! It’s no surprise this fashion goddess is everywhere at the moment with the new Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, being just around the corner everyone is hyped, and yes I mean everyone! The newest trailer even pokes fun at this with the words “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you”, this movie is made for everyone.
Since 1959 young girls have adored these dolls and as years have gone on the love for this doll has only grown and their audience has expanded to adult doll collectors over the years, I myself even own a Barbie doll, a wheelchair Barbie to be exact. Speaking of that, Barbie itself has grown from the blonde hair, ‘can do anything’ Barbie into a diverse line of characters and Barbie, with many races, disabilities, and even body types. The Barbie movie even plans to show this diversity with the movie's cast, it’s already clear to see and I’m so excited to see all these Barbies and Kens on the big screen.
Onto my personal favourite thing about this movie, the advertising! Taking over social media back in early April, the Barbie movie team put out some fun and colourful posts:
There is so much to unpack here! The diversity, the beauty, the girl power, and best of all, the humour. ‘Barbie is everything’ and ‘He’s just Ken’, this can be seen on all these posts, ‘This Barbie is…’ and then just ‘Ken again!’. Barbie for years has shown girls that they can be whatever they want to be, while men have run the world for years, Barbie has been a motivation to young ages to be who they want to be.
The advertising team didn’t stop there, they made a generator so you can join in the fun. By going to https://www.barbieselfie.ai, you can upload your own image, edit it a little and make your own ‘This Barbie is’ post. Oh my did people LOVE this, my whole social media feed was full of these posts by people, adding in their own images. I even talked to a few people who didn’t even know there was a Barbie moving coming out but saw this trend everywhere and looked into it. Everyone was doing it and it worked, everyone knew about this movie!
Bear in mind, this was before any trailer was released, so they had a lot of hype to live up to because though everyone was excited, little was actually known about the film. The official trailer only came out on the 26th and they have definitely lived up to people's expectations, to the point where they accidentally started a whole new trend!
Seriously, these screenshots were taken 3 days after the release of the trailer.
And this isn’t even ‘Barbie’ themed, no pink or beauty. It is literally a mugshot and Barbie made it a trend. But really, it’s the comedy behind the photo, with Barbie holding her sign and being actually worried while Ken on the other end looks like he’s having a grand time, his sign even reading ‘and Ken’ like the two are meant to read together. Already we can see how comedy will fit into this movie and how many people will enjoy it already.
I really can’t wait to see this film, and if your social media feed is filled up like mine too you are either just as excited or you really hate going online right now, either way, you should go see this film when it comes out. I expect it to be a big box office success and to be a film that will be remembered, referenced, and memed for years to come.
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