Mattel Builds Social Media Whirl around Barbie Video Girl

Mattel’s iconic doll Barbie signed into social networks Foursquare and Twitter in July to promote her latest career: videographer. And both Barbie and her parent company celebrated the new Video Girl Barbie with a scavenger hunt that challenged fans to find her in actual locations in four cities July 20-23.

Fans 18 and older who followed “Barbie Roberts” on Twitter at @BarbieStyle and on Foursquare were given oblique clues about where Barbie and the Mattel street teams would be located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. In each case, the winner of the hunt had to present something pink to the street teams, or to show their mobile phone displaying either a Foursquare check-in at the location or the original Barbie tweet of the clue.

The first to find Barbie and her team in each of the cities received a Barbie Video Girl doll.

But doesn’t research show that users of Twitter and Foursquare are substantially older than the tween market Barbie most appeals to?

“We really embraced social media as a marketing platform a year ago as part of a major campaign in support of Barbie’s 50th anniversary,” says Lauren Dougherty, director of Barbie marketing at Mattel. “In the process, we did a deep dive into our brand’s DNA and realized that frankly, we are a brand for girls of all ages. We’re not just a doll: Fifty percent of our brand is in licensing, including adult products, entertainment and a collector business. So there’s a larger spectrum of audience to engage with compared to other ‘toy’ brands.”

And to reach those older audiences for the new launch, Dougherty says, Mattel opted to break from its traditional TV spots and work in social channels that skewed older and to target the twenty-something fan. That choice also permitted the company to give Barbie a voice—not to mention a last name (Roberts) and a home address (Malibu CA, of course.) The Video Girl scavenger hunt was also promoted on Barbie’s Facebook page and on the blog written in her voice.

“Barbie is unique in that people really do see her as a pop culture icon and celebrity,’ Dougherty says. “Social media allowed us to give her more dimension as a person.” In fact, Barbie is currently one of a handful of celebrity accounts on Foursquare right now. She also has 17,600 Twitter followers and about 440,000 likes on Facebook—more than 200,000 of those added since January.

The Facebook page and Twitter account were launched last year for the 50th anniversary, but the nature of their content has changed, she says. “Last year our content was more about shaping Barbie as a person—what she likes, what she does. It was more feature-driven. But this year, we’ve begun to find a delicate balance that will allow us to market or promote platforms and products through social media. And we’ve found that when we do that, they are really receptive and want to know more.”

Dougherty says the editorial calendar for the Barbie social media will continue to be a mix of “story-telling” and platform executions such as the Video Girl promotion.

Video Girl Barbie comes equipped with a working video camera that will record up to 25 minutes of content; the lens is in a pendant on her chest and the LCD view screen is embedded in her back, hidden by a hoodie when it’s not required. She also has a USB port for uploading video to the Web and comes with editing software.

The doll launch was also promoted by outreach to bloggers, including a video tour of the Mattel factory on the YouTube channel operated by influential video blogger iJustine. That video, uploaded on July 14, has to date received more than 823,000 views.

This fall, Video Girl Barbie will be at the center of a promotion involving user-generated video. That contest will be more kid-centric and thus will exist on the main Web site, www.Barbie.com, rather than in more grown-up social channels.

One of the other members of Barbie’s social world is also poised to break into social media later this year: Ken, more formally Ken Carson, Barbie’s one-time boyfriend and now just a friend.
“We have such a healthy social platform for Barbie now that we’re going to launch Ken,” Dougherty says. “They’ve broken up, so expect to see him either giving or asking for relationship advice.”