Mattel’s Barbie makeover: the data behind a PR triumph

February 3 2016

By @G_Parsons33

Published in Trends

Last week, toy manufacturer Mattel announced that they were making major changes to the iconic Barbie doll. New versions of the dolls that allow for more diversity will soon be available for purchase. Featuring different body types, skin colors and hair textures, it’s a big step forward from the classic blond, slim Barbie we all know.

Fans were overjoyed at the changes, and the announcement was massively covered by the media, social and otherwise. We used the Visibrain platform to look at Twitter data around the announcement, to find out just how much of a PR success Barbie’s makeover really was.

Newfound interest in an aging product

Barbie sales have been floundering over the past months in favor of more contemporary dolls such as Monster High, American Girls and toys based on Elsa from Disney’s Frozen. Barbie is seen by many as an aging, outdated product, so Thursday’s announcement brought a much-needed rush of new interest in the dolls.

It all started when @Barbie posted this tweet:

The reaction on Twitter was immediate: we can see on the tweet volume timeline that the number of tweets rose significantly after 12.37 pm, the time the tweet was posted.

A view of the tweet volume timeline at the moment the announcement was made

The number of tweets continued to rise, spiking again at 3.56 pm when @Barbie posted a second time:

So just how much attention did Mattel’s news get? In the first 24 hours after the announcement was made, 129,025 tweets about the new Barbies were posted by 104,967 different Twitter accounts. The @Barbie Twitter account was mentioned 27,227 times.

An overview of Twitter activity around Mattel's announcement of their new Barbie range

67% of these tweets were retweets, meaning that the news was widely shared without people feeling the need to tweet individually.

Unsurprisingly, it was all about the girl power: 71.6% of those tweeting about Barbie’s new makeover were women:

The proportion of men and women tweeting about the new Barbie dolls

The Barbie website benefitted from a lot of traffic thanks to Twitter: there were 16,617 tweets that contained a link to the Barbie.com website in the first 24 hours alone, making it the most shared link in tweets about the dolls.

It was also good news for overall Twitter activity around Barbie. We used the Visibrain Quick Trends feature to compare tweet volumes around Barbie compared to those of some of its competitors; Monster High, American Girl and Elsa dolls:

A comparison of Twitter activity around Barbie compared to that of its competitors

We can see that Thursday’s announcement generated a massive spike in activity around the brand, putting it far ahead of the competition in terms of Twitter impact.

Massive interest from the media

Of course, the media picked up on the story very quickly, the news was relayed by some of Twitter’s most influential accounts, including The New York Times, CNN and BBC World. As a result, Mattel’s announcement reached their large audiences. We can see from the screenshot below that the top 5 Twitter accounts that tweeted about the new Barbies all had over 12 million followers:

The most influential Twitter users tweeting about the new Barbies

TIME.com wrote an exclusive piece about Barbie’s new looks, with an evocative cover:

The link to the article has been shared 9,121 times over the past week, making it the second most shared link in tweets about the Barbie makeover.

The most retweeted links shared in tweets about the new Barbie dolls

A more modern, positive image for Barbie

Visibility aside, what did people thank of the new dolls? Public response on Twitter to the changes was positive, with many seeing it as a step forward for female representation and positive body image.

If we look at the top hashtags used in tweets about the rebrand, we can see that #bodyconfidence, #bodypositive, #bodyimage and #progress all feature in the word cloud:

The most commonly used hashtags in tweets about the new Barbie dolls

Singer Queen Latifah @IAMQUEENLATIFAH tweeted very positively about the doll’s image overhaul:

And the positive comments just kept coming:

Of course, there were always going to be a few negative tweets and debates over the subject, but overall the general public reacted positively to Barbie’s overhaul.

All in all, a great result for Mattel: soaring social media impact, a great deal of attention from the press, and positive reactions from the public. The announcement generated a lot of publicity for Mattel and the Barbie brand, but only time will tell if it will actually boost sales.

Cover image source: screenshot of “The Evolution Of Barbie” YouTube video

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Published in Trends