THE VISUAL AND VERBAL LANGUAGE OF BARBIE
- Dean Tanya
- Mar 28, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 29, 2022
In February of 1959, Barbie was first introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Her mission? Barbie's brand identity has always been a promise to make a difference through innovations, creativity and play. She promises that little girls can be anything they want to be and that they have choices.
Over the years, Barbie has strived to recognise and represent woman and to show the little girls playing with them that they can be anything they want to be by giving Barbie over 200 careers. In some of these, woman are traditionally underrepresented. Did you know that Barbie went to the moon four years before Neil Armstrong did? Or that in 1973, Barbie saved lives as a surgeon, at a time when very few women were in the operating room?
Barbie has refined their goal: close the dream gap.
Just as the concept of branding has evolved, Barbie has evolved too. After being criticised for years of being to "unrealistic" and "not relatable", Barbie expanded her range and even included a curvy Barbie in 2015. The change was not necessarily good for the brand, as sales decreased that year with 15% -and we can only ask ourselves why? Some referred to this as "too little, too late". But this hasn't stopped Barbie from being one of the most recognisable toy brands in the world. Barbie has moved on to be a brand where she #MixUpTheToyBox by challenging parents to include a range of skin tones, body types and varying abilities, to help kids understand the importance of representation
Barbie's brand has evolved from where everyone wanted to look like Barbie, to where Barbie looks like everyone.
To further the message of empowering girls, Barbie went on to launch her series “Inspiring Women” and are sold together with “information material that explains the contribution of these women to society, so that girls can be inspired by their stories, while playing”.
The series dolls were inaugurated with the Barbies tribute to the artist Frida Kahlo, to Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator to fly alone in the Atlantic Ocean and to the American mathematics and physics Katherine Johnson. What other toy brand is doing this? No one - and that is what set's Barbie apart as a brand.
But as we find ourselves in a digital age, where children no longer just play with toys but interact with technology on a daily basis. Barbie introduced a different way to keep their brand trending and alive and to connect with the consumer by launching @barbiestyle in 2014. They quickly reached 2 million followers and in 2015, Barbie released her first video blog on YouTube which made it the #1 girls’ brand on YouTube.
Just like any other modern day influencer, Barbie does challenges, takes on DYI projects and talks about what's on her mind. Again, Barbie doesn't stray from her brand identity and even has talks where she says that girls (woman) apologise too much and too often, challenging girls to go a day without saying sorry (video below) and discussed her feelings towards New Years Resolutions.
So whether you played with Barbie as a little girl or just passed her by in the toy isle, she is here to stay. She is here to positively empower little girls with “You can be anything” and “Girls need more role models” slogans with which the American company is riding the wave of pink power to inspire all the little girls around the world.
Bibliography:
Comments