{"id":711,"date":"2018-01-09T17:40:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T15:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2017.liberty.ua?p=711"},"modified":"2018-01-09T17:50:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T15:50:42","slug":"barby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/library\/pr-campaigns\/barby\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Barbie dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Mattel, Inc.<\/strong><br \/>\ntogether with the Ketchum agency<br \/>\nSilver Anvil Award for 2000.<\/p>\n<h3>Overview<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Barbie.<\/strong>\u00a0Everywhere, people know what we're talking about as soon as they hear the word - and their opinions are not always positive. When the world's most successful fashion doll turned 40 in 1999, Mattel saw it as an opportunity to highlight the role Barbie has played as a role model and inspiration for all girls around the world. The anniversary also provided a unique chance to update and improve Barbie's image and reputation among feminist leaders and journalists, given their sometimes critical attitude towards Barbie. Mattel asked PR agency Ketchum to develop a PR campaign that would demonstrate Barbie's strengths and appeal to girls in the 21st century. Keeping Barbie's image modern and positive among mothers means increased sales for the company in the long run. Finding a large-scale approach to celebrate Barbie's anniversary while connecting with girls and women on an emotional level was a challenge for Ketchum. Barbie is no easy target, given that she has been a favourite target for criticism since her introduction in 1959.<\/p>\n<h3>Research.<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A telephone survey of 500 US childless women and mothers of girls aged 3-11 conducted by Omnibus, a national polling service, found that mothers had a more favourable view of Barbie's role in their daughters' lives than childless women. Mothers who had not forgotten their experience with Barbie were also more likely to view Barbie as a positive role model for girls and described the modern Barbie as \"charming\", \"athletic\" and \"independent\". Mothers indicated that they would have a higher opinion of Barbie if the doll could better reflect qualities such as intelligence, determination and caring for others, making her a more attractive female role model for their daughters. The research also showed that women were generally unaware of the brand's charitable programmes and that they were carried out on behalf of little girls.<\/li>\n<li>The media audit of the national media showed that journalists were less favourable towards Barbie and less likely to consider her a positive and modern role model for girls. In general, the media were also unaware of any charity programmes run by the company.<\/li>\n<li>Mattel wanted Barbie to embody the aspirations of the group with which the brand wanted to be associated, using scouting organisations that help girls to make their dreams come true as a decisive factor. The agency identified such organisations and contacted Girl Scouts of America, Girls Incorporated and Girl Power to learn about their missions, attitudes towards Barbie and interest in working with the brand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Planning<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Objectives:\u00a0<\/strong>1) to raise awareness of the positive role that Barbie dolls play in girls' lives; 2) to organise positive, high-quality media coverage of the anniversary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Strategy:<\/strong>\u00a0Use the 40th anniversary celebrations to demonstrate the universal value of Barbie in fostering ideals in girls. Through strategic association with the most important motivators of women's and girls' behaviour, inform, advocate and educate girls about the importance of wanting to achieve things for themselves, while offering realistic means to achieve this, to highlight the image of an intelligent and determined individual most suited to Barbie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key messages:<\/strong>\u00a01) Barbie has a positive impact on the lives of girls by encouraging them to pursue their dreams and set any goals they want: a girl can \"make any dream come true\"; 2) Barbie Dream Ambassadors and participation in Girls Incorporated are just some of the real-life ways Barbie offers to make dreams come true; 3) Barbie has always reflected the interests and lifestyles of girls today, and at 40 years old, she continues to reflect all that girls dream about by supporting their dreams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Target audience:\u00a0<\/strong>1) women (mothers\/prospective mothers of girls); 2) news media (messages influence brand perception).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Budget:<\/strong>\u00a0255 thousand - initial investment and 145 thousand - ongoing costs. These amounts included the cost of organising all events and media outreach, including video editing, as well as additional costs for the 9 March event at the New York Stock Exchange and costs associated with the Barbie Dream Ambassadors programme. In addition, Mattel donated $1.5 million over three years to Girls Incorporated.<\/p>\n<h3>Implementation<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Strategic cooperation. At the initial stage of the anniversary celebration, which was to last for a whole year, Girls Inc. was chosen as a partner, whose mission is to raise girls to be \"strong, smart and brave\". Together with Girls Inc. a group of 10 outstanding women was selected to become the official Barbie Dream Ambassadors. The group included women who have achieved success in various fields of human endeavour, including internet show host Rosie O'Donnell, athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, marine biologist Sylvia Earl, publisher Ann Moore and computer programmer Katrine Garnett.<\/li>\n<li>The gala evening at the toy fair. On the first day of the 1999 New York Toy Fair, Mattel CEO Jill Barad officially launched the Barbie Year at a gala entitled \"Make a Dream Come True\" and announced a $1.5 million donation to Girls Inc. The announcement of this donation and the Barbie Dream Ambassadors programme in the presence of the ambassadors themselves helped to position the brand as essential to the future of girls. The largest national and international entertainment, lifestyle and fashion media outlets were given a sneak peek at what Barbie will look like in the new millennium. A selection of 40th anniversary stories highlighting the development of Barbie's career and 75 other diverse female careers served to remind the media of the many ways in which Barbie has inspired girls to pursue their ideals and aspirations. The event marked the start of the 40th anniversary celebrations, and the programme team began to work in earnest with reporters writing on the topic. Immediately after the event, a video was edited and distributed worldwide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Birthday celebration at the New York Stock Exchange. To keep the promise made almost a month ago at the gala and to share Barbie's global business success on satellite television, Ketchum planned an event on the New York Stock Exchange on 9 March to celebrate Barbie's \"real birthday\". For one day, the whole of Wall Street turned pink: a pink carpet was laid out on the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, and the area with the bell announcing the start of trading was turned into a pink birthday cake. A \"breakfast of power\" was organised with Girls Inc. to teach girls about the basics of economic literacy and to convince them that each of them can \"make their dreams come true\". Barbie's creator, 84-year-old Ruth Handler, rang the bell to open trading on the stock exchange. The breakfast was attended by 30 girls from Girls Inc. and 30 female mentors from the financial community, who helped the girls gain knowledge about budgeting, finance and careers in the financial world. The main focus was on the news and business media. The media covering the anniversary celebration showed increased interest in the event. A video was released once again.<\/li>\n<li>Birthday celebration at the FAO Schwarz store. In the afternoon of 9 March, Ruth Handler, Barbie's \"mother\" and her live model, blew out the candles on a birthday cake and signed 800 dolls for Barbie collectors and fans: the line stretched all the way around the store on 5th Avenue. The main focus was on lifestyle media. The campaign allowed Barbie fans to take part in a special celebration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Further media contacts: Throughout the year, the PR agency coordinated coverage of the Dream Ambassadors programme and sponsored additional projects for girls to learn the basics of economic literacy in conjunction with Girls Inc. including a CD-ROM (highlighting new activities devised by Girls Inc.) that was sold with a Barbie Working Woman doll. During 1999. \"Dream Ambassadors...\" held events and gave interviews about their own projects. At the same time, they did not forget to mention their support for the intentions of the Barbie brand and to continue to help girls fulfil their dreams. The unveiling of the new Pink Barbie and Working Woman models was also tied to the celebration and ideas of the 40th anniversary. On the website www.\u0432arbie.com, collectors and girls could read materials about the history of Barbie, the year-long celebration of \"40 years of success of the Barbie doll\" and find new \"fun facts about Barbie\" every week.<\/li>\n<li>Overcoming challenges. Many challenges were overcome throughout the year to successfully execute the events and media coverage. 1999 was a challenging year for Mattel, and while Barbie sales remained strong, the company's financial news in many cases threatened to overshadow the celebration. Ketchum developed the key messages; and Mattel's media-trained staff continued to emphasise the 40 years of success of the Barbie brand and the company's commitment to continuing to evolve its image. The day before the event at the New York Stock Exchange, Mattel CEO Jill Barad fell ill and had to cancel. As the agency worked with the firm to prepare for Ruth Handler's participation, it helped overcome initial objections from the stock exchange to having someone other than the company's CEO ring the bell. Ruth's positioning as the founder of one of the world's largest toy manufacturers helped to win approval from the stock exchange.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Evaluation<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Objective 1<\/strong>\u00a0- to raise awareness of the positive role that Barbie plays in girls' lives was achieved.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Girls Inc. evaluated its strategic alliance with Barbie and emphasised the feedback it received from its board, funders and opinion leaders such as The Ms. Foundation and the Girl Power Campaign (none of whom had endorsed the Barbie brand prior to the programme). The feedback was as follows: \"The Mattel-Girls Inc. alliance is a great way to reach many impressionable girls with important messages\"; \"I am thrilled with the results and thank you for this brilliant, timely initiative\"; \"I raised three daughters and never bought them Barbie because of her image. Thank God, things are finally changing!\" The National Council for Research on Women has posted information about the alliance on its website. The charity The Ms. Foundation is looking to collaborate with the company on a future project. Nell Merlino, the creator of the Hiring Our Daughters programme, uses the example of the alliance in her presentations on developing communications strategies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>70% of media coverage was devoted to the following key campaign messages: \"Barbie's Dream Ambassadors\", the 40th anniversary, the continued appeal of Barbie, and its relevance to girls' lives; 50% of them named Barbie as a role model.<\/li>\n<li>Objective 2 - to organise positive, high-quality media coverage of the anniversary - was achieved.<\/li>\n<li>Ketchum's qualitative media analysis of print and electronic media coverage and audience reach demonstrates the success of the campaign. Articles and programmes about the 40th anniversary appeared in 25 countries, including in such US and international publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today and The Hollywood Reporter. Seventeen minutes of coverage was broadcast on CNN. Approximately a quarter of the more than 1,700 publications dedicated to the programme mentioned the brand's global success.<\/li>\n<li>Entertainment media dedicated special reports to Barbie, including ET, Extra, Inside Edition and E! (with an hour-long programme). MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Fox News Channel also covered the celebration. Press releases fully dedicated to the programme appeared in 40 major markets served by ADI. 60% of the press articles contained at least one photo or image of the 40th anniversary logo. Coverage was provided in prime-time television programmes, including Jeopardy! and Hollywood Squares, which included questions about the doll phenomenon. Barbie was featured in the programme \"10 Best Toys of All Time\" on A&amp;E (Arts and Entertainment), with a 30-second segment dedicated exclusively to the variety of Barbie looks. The Today programme, Good Morning America and CBS Morning all featured Barbie. Reuter's distributed the print, radio and television coverage worldwide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The programme took a product that had achieved iconic status and began the process of bringing new meaning to Barbie's image in the 21st century, thus keeping the brand relevant and desirable to consumers. The work of Ketchum and Mattel has received a positive response from opinion makers and won a favourable attitude even from a negative audience.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u041a\u043e\u043c\u043f\u0430\u043d\u0438\u044f Mattel, Inc. \u0441\u043e\u0432\u043c\u0435\u0441\u0442\u043d\u043e \u0441 \u0430\u0433\u0435\u043d\u0442\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e\u043c Ketchum \u041f\u0440\u0435\u043c\u0438\u044f \u00ab\u0421\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0431\u0440\u044f\u043d\u0430\u044f \u043d\u0430\u043a\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u044f\u00bb \u0437\u0430 2000 \u0433. \u041e\u0431\u0437\u043e\u0440 \u0411\u0430\u0440\u0431\u0438.\u00a0\u041f\u043e\u0432\u0441\u044e\u0434\u0443 \u043b\u044e\u0434\u0438 \u0441\u0440\u0430\u0437\u0443 \u0436\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u043d\u0438\u043c\u0430\u044e\u0442, \u043e&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pr-campaigns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberty.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}