”Hi, Barbie!” A PR Pro Pop Culture Check-in

It’s a “Barbenheimer” world and in this episode we talk about the savvy and work that went into this massively successful campaign. We also touch on what’s going on with the platform formerly known as Twitter (it’s still Twitter to us).

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me, Michelle Kane of VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey, Karen, how are you? Or should I say, “Hi, Barbie?”

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

<Laugh>. I don't know what Barbie I am today. Hi Michelle. How are you doing today?

Michelle Kane (00:26):

I am Holding It Together Barbie today. <Laugh>,

Karen Swim, APR (00:30):

I might be, I'm, you know, I think saying Not Sure What Barbie I Am Today is probably pretty accurate for most days of the week for me lately.

Michelle Kane (00:40):

Oh, I hear you. I hear you. It's, I don't know why. I'm always surprised when I'm surprised by how days can unfold <laugh>.

Karen Swim, APR (00:48):

Yes. This summer has been particularly eventful for, for most people. I'm finding it's not just, just PR pros. In my past, in my past PR life, <laugh>, summer is always a quiet time.

Michelle Kane (01:05):

Yeah. No more

Karen Swim, APR (01:07):

I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I don't know if it's going to hail or snow or rain in the middle of August. I don't know. I just don't know. So that's the way that I approach my days these days.

Michelle Kane (01:23):

Exactly.

Karen Swim, APR (01:24):

Optimism, knowing that anything could happen. And you know what? We used to say, when pigs fly, and now that just doesn't even seem out of the realm of possibility

Michelle Kane (01:35):

I hear that might be being worked on. Who knows? I'm sure <laugh> No, sure. <Laugh>.

Karen Swim, APR (01:40):

Elon Musk is figuring that out.

Michelle Kane (01:42):

Oh, goodness. I'm sure he is. So, as you might've guessed, today's episode, we're just going to do a pop culture PR check-in because as this is airing, this will hit right after the second weekend of Barbenheimer. So I don't know if many of you have seen either Barbie or Oppenheimer, but there's a lot to admire about the PR that's gone into it and just, there's just a lot of points to consider, especially through the PR lens. I mean, first of all, that even though I know personally and across the board it's been really challenging to get people to engage in the way they did in the before times, especially in-person events, things like that. Just because our priorities have shifted, our time, the way we spend our time has changed. Anyway, all that to say, in the midst of all that, a ton of people went back to the movie theater. To either Barbie or Oppenheimer, they’re smashing records. So it's pretty amazing. And unless you've, you know, truly been checking out this summer, and if you have good for you it's kind of hard to miss any of the promotion for either Barbie or Oppenheimer. And I have a pretty low, low bar for being annoyed by this kind of thing, and I'm not annoyed yet. So they must be doing something right, <laugh>.

Karen Swim, APR (03:12):

Yeah. I think from a PR perspective, and many PR professionals have noted this on social media, that this was really a masterclass in a great execution of a campaign. So a couple of things that stood out to me from the communication side for Barbie in particular is that number one, it just reinforces what we as PR pros know to be true. That having a strategic plan that is comprehensive and robust and the time to be able to execute that plan means everything. Because this did not come together in months. This was a plan that rolled out over a long period of time, and it was a campaign that incorporated not just that lever of earned media, it was paid, it was the PESO formula. It’s beautifully done. It also stood out to me that going into the planning of the messaging, they understood that there were people that don't like Barbie. Maybe not passionate activists against Barbie but the people that just don't like Barbie or have an issue with it. And rather than trying to navigate around that, they leaned into that and considered that their audience as well and developed messaging that embraced the detraction. And I thought, beautifully done, because sometimes we want to avoid, you know, the “antis” <laugh>. Right. And rather than doing that, they fully embraced that. And I thought that that was genius.

Michelle Kane (05:07):

Yeah. They really did. I mean, even for those who have not seen the film, I won't reveal a whole lot. But there's definitely the acknowledgement that Barbie is somewhat problematic.

Karen Swim, APR (05:20):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (05:21):

But as anything, many things are full of shades of gray. And what I thought was incredible was that even though Barbie's a Warner Brothers film, Oppenheimer, I believe is with Universal, they played well together. I mean, they're building on the whole Barbenheimer of it all. What sticks out to me, like you said, with this long game, I mean, it started with the set photos of Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in their full on neon roller blades, to make people take notice. And that was, gosh, easily, at least a year ago, to make us say, “Oh my, what is that? Oh, so this is how it's going to come together. Okay. I'm intrigued…” and just, then go about our lives. But even, I don't know if you saw the photos of I think it was Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig at the movies holding their tickets for Oppenheimer. And then, everyone was kind of returning the favor of I got my tickets to Barbie of I just, that collegiality that built up, “Hey, you know, we're all in this together” and “There's enough room for everyone.” Let's, you know, as the little jingle says, let's all go to the movies <laugh>.

Karen Swim, APR (06:34):

I think the first trailer was, it was a weird one for Barbie. And they didn't realize that it would be so popular. In full disclosure, I have not seen the movie. Yet. So, my discussion about this is purely from looking at it from the comms perspective, and what I've read and what I've seen on the story behind how this all came together. I know that this was a well-executed campaign because I’m actually planning on going to see a movie that I probably never would've planned to see. Because there's something special about having this environment again, of the summer blockbuster and having everyone talking about it, because let's face it, with streaming, you know, there's a pocket of people that may talk about something, but it's not the same as when something grabs hold of the culture and people are dressing up and they're excited. And I'm here for it. I love it. I'm so glad. This makes me very happy.

Michelle Kane (07:53):

Yeah. And it shows that we can have those experiences again, where everyone is, let's say most everyone, is excited about gathering together and just really getting involved or getting caught up in the excitement of it all. So that's been encouraging and it's just been a fun ride all around just to see how this has rolled out and to see how it continues to. And it also speaks to another thing that we are hungry for - original stories. I mean, certainly, you know, Oppenheimer's a real person, Barbie's a doll, but, you know, just refreshing to see something that doesn't have a “part six” at the end of it. I think we might be at the end of those rides, but who knows? What do I know? I'm not a studio executive.

Karen Swim, APR (08:41):

You know what I love? So yes, Barbie has been problematic as a child. It wasn't necessarily problematic for me. There were issues that even I, as a small child realized playing with my Barbies, and I gravitated towards, you know, my personality  gravitated not towards Barbie and Ken, but you know, towards Skipper, who no one remembers. But over the years, obviously as I became an adult,  I really began to have issues with it. And what I kind of love about this, and this segues into something else we can't avoid talking about, is that the Barbie brand has evolved over the years. And they've evolved their brand in a way that was acceptable to their audiences and they attracted new audiences. It was exciting to me to listen to one of the teens on my street and see her bouncy, happy about wanting to go see Barbie and her knowing Barbie from the cartoons.

But they didn't, you know, they didn't run away from the problematic past. This is part of the whole story of Barbie, and they understood that Barbie's embedded in our cultural discussions, it's an icon. They didn't rebrand arbitrarily. They could have done that. Mattel could have created something else and just steered away from Barbie in the problematic era, but instead they did not do that. I'm going to say that in my opinion, that's the smarter way versus Elon Musk and Twitter running from their problematic past. And I don't know if that was the motivation and rebranding something that it has been such an important icon in our history. Twitter is Twitter. We grew up with the Twitter bird, with the Twitter sounds, the bird sounds, it's has meaning, it has cultural significance, good, bad, ugly. I'm not quite sure why this company would lean away from what has been such an important institution for people and one that's recognizable.

Can we just talk about brand recognition? It's baffling. Why would you change the name? Which to me feels like a personal, very egotistical thing in that here's a person who names his children these, so it feels like this was personal and not a brand decision, which completely disregards your audience that it's there, or at least to win back and you have an opportunity to win back new fans. You really do, because no one has replaced Twitter as of today. There are lots of other social media platforms they're not catching on in the same way. There's still something different about Twitter, although people are now not participating there, myself included, because it's a trash platform. But I just, you know, just to contrast, here's a company that did it right and owned the failures and mistakes and went through some really hard times where they were really not the beloved brand, but they didn't change their name and forget they didn't try to trick their audience. Like, Hey, we're this now <laugh>.

Michelle Kane (12:22):

Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing a couple of things. The, the first is, and forgive me, I forget the reporter's name, but he brought to light that this is not Elon's first rodeo with trying to rename something “X” apparently when in 2000, when he was leading PayPal, he wanted to do the same thing and he wanted to make it almost like in in Asia where they have the WeChat, he wants this “X” to be an all-purpose thing. And it's like, okay, well even if that's your intent, what sense does it make to completely trash the running thing you bought, decimate your staff? I mean, there's something off there that we all know, once you get into that stratosphere of being a billionaire, you're not making rational decisions. And the other disturbing trend is, I was just reading comments of a thread of people pointing out this very thing, this doesn't make sense. It's not good business. It got you in trouble before, it got you ousted before. And yet there's still the fan base of “Oh no. Secretly he is the super genius that knows what he's doing. You just wait and see.”

Karen Swim, APR (13:32):

And not to take anything away from Elon Musk, he is brilliant. Let let's just be clear on that. No one is disputing his intelligence.

Michelle Kane (13:51):

I am…<laughs>

Karen Swim, APR (13:52):

What I am contrasting is that I feel like this particular business decision is, it's just a bad decision. And it's not something from a communication standpoint that any of us in this audience would ever have said, sure, let's do that. Because there's no reasoning behind it. And again, as public relations professionals, part of our job is protecting our publics. And I feel like this really dismisses your publics and I'm totally not sure that it's going to lead to the ultimate goal of winning back advertisers or having people want to pay a premium to use this service. I think it just continues to drive away. And maybe that's the goal. Maybe it's to drive away all of the old users and turn this into a political platform that is very much focused on one political party or one political point of view, and have it be all brand new. And, and if that's the goal, then have at it, you know?

Michelle Kane (14:49):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (14:50):

Go, do you, be you. But I certainly am not spending any money on this platform, and I'm barely spending time there. Pop in there. Yeah. On occasion, because it's, it's a habit that's hard to break.

Michelle Kane (15:05):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, it just, it makes no sense from a real nuts and bolts, let's do real business point of view. It just doesn't, and you're right. It dismisses anything that makes sense from a communications standpoint. So I don't know. I mean, we're we're definitely not on the same page as they are, maybe not even on the same bookshelf as they are. So it's just interesting to watch. And I didn't know anything about the whole PayPal thing until I read that article.

Karen Swim, APR (15:37):

Now, let's be honest, on a smaller scale for we communicators, this has happened to us with clients. We have clients that have wanted to change the name of the company or have a brand new logo for absolutely zero reason at all. And so, I can only imagine, I don’t know if there are any comms people left at Twitter, but clearly not. And so, again, for us to do our jobs well, and if there are any non-PR people in this audience, and you are thinking of engaging with PR people for us to do our jobs well, it really requires for you to trust our strategic counsel, our expertise, and understand that if we're saying no to you, it's not because we are trying to limit your vision. It's not because we are not visionary ourselves.

It's not because we don't like you. It's because we do have our eye on the big picture. But our picture includes your publics, it includes your brand equity, it includes the reputation of your company. And so we're taking a long view and a broader view than you might be looking, and you may have a different vision, but it's worthwhile to have that discussion and not just pull the plug on something without having your comms team involved and having you guys come to a point of alignment. I mean, trust the people that you have hired and take their advice. Sometimes you're still going to go off and do what you want to do. I get that. I've dealt with this too, where companies just changed the name and you have either come in after they just did it, and you're like, “Why?”

Michelle Kane (17:32):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>

Karen Swim, APR (17:34):

Or you are unable to move them off of what they want to do, and so left to their own devices, people will change the name sometimes.

Michelle Kane (17:50):

Oh yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (17:51):

I have engaged with companies where they already have a new name, and it’s a name that's so hard to SEO and so hard to monitor. Sometimes companies choose names that are simple, but they're so simple that they get confused with like a million other things. And so it fails the SEO value, or it's unique and weirdly spelled, and then it's hard for anybody to find. So, you know, these are things that we all think about.

Michelle Kane (18:16):

Yeah. We're not in here to be Debbie Downer. We are communications pros. We're not just here to blow out your messaging. We're here to consider how you are perceived and look out for you on all those points. I've had that too. And sometimes it takes, sometimes it does come around in a couple of years where if a certain aspect of something has been branded and named and I've counseled and said, you know, that's going to make your, your, your potential audience think too much. They're not exactly going to understand. It's not going to be perceived as you wish with everyone who sees it. And at the end of the day, it's going to be confusing. So sometimes, if it's not an earth shattering decision and the whole company's not going to tank as a result, let it play out. And eventually it comes around to, oh, that wasn't working. Interesting. Okay, let's try this. <Laugh>,

Karen Swim, APR (19:21):

I mean,

Michelle Kane (19:22):

Yeah,

Karen Swim, APR (19:22):

Facebook just did it, right? They became Meta,

Michelle Kane (19:27):

Yeah, <laugh>,

Karen Swim, APR (19:27):

But it's still called Facebook. It's still called Instagram by Meta. Yeah. But it just, X puts me in mind of XFiles, <laugh>

Michelle Kane (19:38):

And then there’s this little thing of Microsoft owning the, is it the patent or the trademark for “X”?

Karen Swim, APR (19:46):

Yes. And it's a black and white logo. Like Okay. The Twitter bird was iconic. Twitter was iconic. Yeah. We're not going to say whatever he wants to call tweets. It's a definite contrast to the, you know, colorful neon, fashion forward Barbie and their whole message and the Barbie brand. So good on you.

Michelle Kane (20:25):

Kudos.

Karen Swim, APR (20:26):

I mean, this is to me like what you would submit an award for, because they really did the doggone thing. And while we also know that I love this interview, and I believe it was Vanity Fair where the comms person shared that, “I've been doing this for 35 years and this level, like of success has never happened.” I love that he was transparent about that, because once again, we have people that see successes, you know, in the areas that we play in.

Michelle Kane (20:56):

Oh yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (20:57):

They want to duplicate it. So they say, “oh, well they were on TikTok, so let's go on TikTok.” And then they jump to these shiny new tools and they want to do stuff. And then they're like, “well, why isn't this working?” Or they'll, they're like, “well, wow, look, so-and-so was in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and okay, let's go there.”

Michelle Kane (21:14):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (21:15):

But do you have anything to say, really? Are you, do you think that that's what really got them to what you're seeing? Because there's a whole lot of things that happen in the background that you don't know about. Let's talk about those things.

Michelle Kane (21:31):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, I love that they said that too, because it's true. And I'm sure that at the time when they were scoping this out, they were hopeful, but they definitely did not have certainty that it would play out the way it did.

Karen Swim, APR (21:49):

No one could have predicted when this movie came out, where we would be in our collective consciousness - that we are turned out, we're tired, we haven't had a lot of fun. Life is life and really hard. And so there was a little bit of magic and a little bit of luck, right? And we know that that's happened to even other viral campaigns that weren't on this level but were tremendously successful. Sometimes there's just a little bit of fortune that favors you. However, what's that saying? Fortune favors the prepared, they came and they brought their A game. And they did a really great job. And so yes, there was a little bit of fortune, but they were prepared for that.

Michelle Kane (22:38):

You know what's going to happen? This is my prediction. Twitter is going to be renamed Barbie <laugh> since it's popular, without regard for patents or copyrights.

Karen Swim, APR (22:52):

Because it's popular, bright and shiny, Elon Musk would immediately <laugh> put the hammer to that. It's not a mathematical formula. I'm thinking that he's going to be like, no.

Michelle Kane (23:09):

Oh, well, yeah. Right, right. Exactly. Well, the new alleged name for tweets, “xeet,” I guess X E E T. Yeah. when I saw it in print, it just made me think, being a Philly suburban girl, it made me think of our slang for “Did you eat yet?” Is “jeet” J E E T <laugh> I was like, jeet? Oh, what? Is Elon asking if I ate already. What? Oh, okay. Whatever. Next tweet.

Karen Swim, APR (23:34):

Already I'm an ex tweeter.

Michelle Kane (23:39):

I tell you, I think I'm

Karen Swim, APR (23:39):

officially an ex tweeter, so don't look for me there. <Laugh>.

Michelle Kane (23:44):

Yeah. I certainly don't spend as much time as I used to, which is, it's a bummer because it brought so much to our world. But you know, what do they say? The only thing constant is change. So there you have it.

So we hope you've enjoyed spending this little time with us, checking on some pop culture things, maybe encouraging you to get in line, buy some popcorn, and enjoy some cinema therapy, as I like to call it. But whatever you choose, we hope you value this content. And if you do, please share it around. Please follow us on all the Solo PR channels. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.