WHAT WE DID

When the soundtrack listing was released a prominent ‘me and the boys on our way to watch Barbie’ was coursing through social media. Leaning on this theme we used prominent builder influencers to recreate the meme and call out the soundtrack – our posts generated buzz and discussion around the big names featuring in the album.

Ahead of the full album release, Dua Lipa’s ‘Up All Night’ and Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice’s ‘Barbie World’ were already out and growing on TikTok and Instagram. Our tech flagged that a dance trend was moving the needle on Dua Lipa’s track so we leaned into this with prominent and high-virality dance creators. The strategy was effective and creators who usually get 20k views achieved well over 1 million on this trend. Over in ‘Barbie World’ it was clear that a lip-sync transition trend was driving growth on the sound. Using prominent creators in the Rap & RnB space we pushed this creative and daily creations increased by 300% as a result.

Once the album and film came out, the digital narrative around Barbie evolved – our tech showed that Billie Eilish’s track (which plays at an emotionally pivotal point in the film)  had gained massive momentum after opening weekend. The track was the opposite of the others on the soundtrack – a slow, emotional piano-led ballad. To match the tone of the song and the message of the film we used comedy creators but gave them a creative brief that focused on existential trauma. 

The album was massively successful debuting at #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. It had 3 tracks simultaneously in the UK top 5 making it the first soundtrack to do so and the cultural impact of the album and film was a huge talking point of Summer 2023.