‘She’s a cultural icon’: How Barbie’s marketing team is targeting fans across generations this year

Are you a Barbie girl in a Barbie world?

Coachella attendees could live out the lyrics to Aqua’s 1997 hit song in real life this month as part of the brand’s first-ever activation at the music festival, called “You Can Be Any Barbie,” where visitors could inhabit different Barbie personas in a portrait studio session.

The experiential activation, which also included a charm bar and gallery wall, is one way that Barbie, after getting a major brand boost with the 2023 blockbuster film, is marketing to multiple generations this year.

“We think of Barbie as so much more than a toy—she’s a cultural icon,” Nathan Baynard, VP and global head of Barbie for Mattel, told us. “This is yet another way for us to show up in a culturally relevant space and continue to connect with the next generation.”

The activation drew nearly 12,000 visitors over the course of the festival’s two weekends, according to the brand’s PR team, which also shared that Barbie invited 16 creators including reality star Olandria Carthen and four members of the press on a Barbie brand trip to the festival. Influencer content from the first weekend totalled 533 posts and brought in 132 million views; social posts from the brand’s channels, meanwhile, saw 13.5 million video views and roughly 604,000 organic engagements, the company said.

It’s likely Coachella won’t be the only experiential effort from Barbie this year. “Experiential will continue to be a key part of our strategy,” Baynard said. “We believe in continuing to connect with the multiple generations that Barbie has relationships with…You have my commitment and the tease that more will be coming.”

Growth potential: While Baynard was coy about where Barbie may show up next, the effort may very well target adult fans. “From an industry perspective, there’s growth potential with our adult audience, and so that’s absolutely informing our marketing mix and strategy,” he said.

Recognizing that audience may be an effort to boost overall brand performance. Throughout 2025, the doll category declined 7% for Barbie’s parent company Mattel, which Ynon Kreiz, executive chairman and CEO, noted during Q4 earnings was “primarily due to Barbie and Polly Pocket.” During the same call, Kriez also said that the company expects Barbie to “return to growth in 2027.”

Influencer Ken: Aside from showing up at Coachella, Barbie’s male counterpart, Ken, was featured in a Super Bowl commercial this year in an ad for Expedia. Using Barbie characters in collaborations and partnerships is another strategy the brand plans to lean more on this year.

“We’ve been treating Barbie as talent herself for several years,” Baynard said. “She’s an influencer in her own right. She has millions of followers on social, [and] that allows her to show up in a variety of places and spaces and participate in campaigns as an influencer with all sorts of partners over the years.”

As for Ken, well, he’s not just Ken this year. “We’re in the midst of Ken’s 65th anniversary,” Baynard told us, adding that the doll, who was depicted by Ryan Gosling in the 2023 film, and other characters from the Barbie world “are powerful tools for us from a marketing perspective.”

Barbie movie playbook: It helps that the characters connected with audiences around the world with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie starring Margot Robbie, which brought in $1.44 billion at the global box office.

“It was quite a journey to go on with Warner Brothers, and a really magical time as a marketer,” Baynard, who was leading marketing during that time, said. “It obviously started with having an amazing product and a film that was created by amazing creators in [director] Greta and Margot and everyone involved with that film.”

Baynard sees the reception as a moment that “broadened the aperture” for the Barbie brand, he said. Aside from the story of the film, the marketing partnership machine around it and the success of that effort are still informing strategies today.

“We had something like over 150 partnerships during the movie, and we know that partners can really help us amplify the overall impact of our campaign,” Baynard said, noting the brand employed an amplification strategy with influencer partnerships for Coachella. “That was another key part of the Barbie movie playbook that we’re still applying now and will continue to do so.”