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Speaker 1: Hi, It's West Kasova. We're taking a break this week

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Speaker 1: for the holidays, so here's an episode you might have missed.

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Speaker 2: Hi Barbie, Hi KENHS Barbie, Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie, Hi.

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Speaker 3: Barbie Hi Barbie Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, did you hear there's a Barbie movie coming out

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Speaker 1: this summer? Did you bring your rollder blates?

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Speaker 4: I literally go nowhere without them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that would explain the hot pink invasion of the

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Speaker 1: Internet for weeks now. And Barbie's got all the makings

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Speaker 1: of a summer blockbuster, big name stars Margot Robbie plays Barbie,

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Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling is Ken, and a viral marketing campaign that

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Speaker 1: has everyone talking. It's also got something else going for it,

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Speaker 1: a potentially massive, multi generational audience of people who have

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Speaker 1: many memories and strong feelings about this sixty four year

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Speaker 1: old doll, including the producers on the Big Take podcast team.

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Speaker 5: I do remember one year for my birthday, someone gave

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Speaker 5: me this Barbie that had hair that changed when I

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Speaker 5: got wet, so you could dip her hair into the

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Speaker 5: sink and it would turn blue and pink, and I

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Speaker 5: thought that was really cool. I am extremely excited for

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Speaker 5: the movie.

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Speaker 6: I had the best of both Worlds with Mattel toys.

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Speaker 6: My parents bought me both hot wheels with the orange

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Speaker 6: racetrack and a boatload of Barbies. Sometimes I played with

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Speaker 6: them together, other times, depending on how I was feeling,

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Speaker 6: you know, I would just play with one or the other.

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Speaker 6: Most times, though, my heart's desire drove me to those

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Speaker 6: orange race tracks.

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Speaker 7: I loved Barbie as a kid. I particularly loved dressing

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Speaker 7: her up. My friend had the Barbie dream House, and

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Speaker 7: I love to fill up the pool when I was

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Speaker 7: at my friend's house and we'd have them go swimming.

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Speaker 7: I did have fun as I got older cutting her hair,

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Speaker 7: and then I realized it didn't grow back.

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Speaker 8: I never really liked Barbie's when I was a kid.

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Speaker 5: One birthday someone gave me a Barbie wed roller.

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Speaker 6: Place and I was like, eh, okay, but it seemed expensive,

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Speaker 6: so I was like, okay, nice.

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Speaker 2: I think after a rough couple of years, you know,

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Speaker 2: with the pandemic and everything, it's really nice to just

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Speaker 2: have a movie where you can go in and think

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Speaker 2: about nothing. It's fun, it's flirty, it's colorful, and overall

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Speaker 2: it's Barbie Like. That's the best kind of summer movie

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Speaker 2: that you could ask.

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Speaker 1: For but Barbie's maker, Mattel isn't just hoping for a

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Speaker 1: hit in theaters. Barbie sales have fluctuated over the years.

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Speaker 1: The companies struggled to make this all important, but aging

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Speaker 1: product line relevant today, and for a lot of parents,

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Speaker 1: that original Barbie esthetic, the permanent high heels, the pink

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Speaker 1: convert the dream house is the opposite of what they

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Speaker 1: want their kids to emulate and aspire to be. Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: Kelly Gilblum writes in BusinessWeek that one aim of the

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Speaker 1: movie is to get those skeptics to see Mattel's reimagine

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Speaker 1: Barbie in a new light and hopefully turn them into customers,

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Speaker 1: all while not doing anything to disappoint Barbie's intensely loyal fans.

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Speaker 8: It was always pretty risky to try to put a

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Speaker 8: movie out about the doll, because it's so personal and

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Speaker 8: the emotions are so heightened around her that it was

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Speaker 8: got to backfire.

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Speaker 1: I'm Wescasova today on the big take Barbie's High Stake

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Speaker 1: debut on the Pink Carpet.

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Speaker 6: Kelly.

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Speaker 1: I think if you have an Internet connection, it's been

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Speaker 1: pretty impossible to avoid Barbie movie hype, and I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, and I'm one of them, thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: this will be a fun summer movie. But you and

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Speaker 1: our colleague Thomas Buckley right in this story that this

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Speaker 1: movie is really important and there's a lot at stake.

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Speaker 1: Why is this such a big important moment for Mattel

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Speaker 1: When you think.

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Speaker 8: About how the company is structured. Their biggest brand and

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Speaker 8: their biggest source of revenue is Barbie. This is a

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Speaker 8: brand they invented in the nineteen fifties, has been the

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Speaker 8: best selling doll of all time. It's completely iconic, and

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Speaker 8: it's kind of the way Barbie goes the way Mattel

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Speaker 8: goes in terms of how the company fares. But Barbie's

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Speaker 8: sort of interesting in that the way she was invented

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Speaker 8: was to have an incredibly personal connection to the little

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Speaker 8: girls that play with her, and that they're supposed to

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Speaker 8: envision themselves as adults in playing with Barbie's. With this

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Speaker 8: reputation of the doll at stake, they you really have

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Speaker 8: to get it right. They really have to show that

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Speaker 8: they can connect with that customer again, that they can

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Speaker 8: be something like a role model.

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Speaker 1: Kell you said that Mattel's biggest product is the Barbie

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Speaker 1: doll and has been for a really long time. How

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Speaker 1: much money is Barbie worth?

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Speaker 8: To Mattel, Barbie is worth about a third of its

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Speaker 8: overall revenue. At its peak, it was close to two

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Speaker 8: billion a year. It's gone all the way down to

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Speaker 8: nine hundred million in recent years. But it is the

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Speaker 8: biggest sales driver of the company and probably the most

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Speaker 8: profitable item that they sell.

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Speaker 1: And as you say, it's kind of come down, and

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Speaker 1: some of that has to do, I guess with the

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Speaker 1: pandemic when toy sales were just gangbusters for everything.

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Speaker 8: Over the past few years, Barbie's head ups and downs.

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Speaker 8: They did a big makeover the doll in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 8: sales went up. So when the pandemic happened and there

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Speaker 8: was an overall boom and toy sales, they were well

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Speaker 8: positioned for that and sales I rocketed. But then in

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Speaker 8: recent years there's been inflation, there's been economic malaise, and

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Speaker 8: things have kind of fallen back down and normalized again.

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Speaker 1: Kelly, you mentioned that the company had reimagined Barbie. Why

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Speaker 1: did they feel like they needed to reinvent her or

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Speaker 1: change the way she was?

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Speaker 8: So the way Barbie has traditionally been, you know, has

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Speaker 8: been very close to the roots of her invention in

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Speaker 8: the nineteen fifties, and it was based on a gold

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Speaker 8: digging comic strip character, and she was kind of like

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Speaker 8: this archetype of a bombshell blonde Marilyn Monroe type of figure,

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Speaker 8: and they pretty much stayed close to that for most

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Speaker 8: of her history. You know, there were some studies that said, like,

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Speaker 8: you know, if you put Barbie into a real life

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Speaker 8: human forms, she wouldn't have enough space in her midsection

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Speaker 8: to fit her intestines, she wouldn't be able to lift

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Speaker 8: her head up. It was just very preposterous the kind

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Speaker 8: of anatomy that she had, And so the reimagining of

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Speaker 8: it was to make it more realistic and also appealing

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Speaker 8: to a broader group of young girls. If the doll

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Speaker 8: is meant to be a projection of their future selves,

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Speaker 8: you just cannot imagine playing adult with a doll that

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Speaker 8: just will never be you.

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Speaker 1: And Kelly, one of the things in the story that

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Speaker 1: you write about is that as Barbie seemed no longer

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Speaker 1: kind irrelevant and girls no longer saw themselves in Barbie,

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Speaker 1: other doll makers moved in to clean that cultural relevance.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, they really kind of lost their way. The Mattel

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Speaker 8: executives did, I would say starting in the early two thousands.

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Speaker 8: That's when the real crisis for Barbie began. It started

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Speaker 8: because they had a disastrous acquisition that costs a lot

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Speaker 8: of money, and a CEO is a great steward of

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Speaker 8: Barbie left the company as a result of that acquisition

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Speaker 8: going sour, and so they had the people come in

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Speaker 8: and they just weren't as good at connecting. They've done

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Speaker 8: well under male leadership before, but it was hard, I guess,

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Speaker 8: for those particular men that were CEOs at the time

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Speaker 8: to connect with that young girl mindset. For some reason,

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Speaker 8: as these years were going on, they had competitors come in,

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Speaker 8: which wasn't like the first time that had ever happened,

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Speaker 8: but they weren't able to respond to it in a

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Speaker 8: good way. The first was an actual matel designer who

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Speaker 8: worked on Barbie created a new design for some dolls

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Speaker 8: called Brats. They were more diverse, they were cool.

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Speaker 1: I remember those dolls when my daughters were young. They

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Speaker 1: were just everywhere. Brats were the doll Oh yeah.

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Speaker 8: They were huge. They got to a billion dollars in

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Speaker 8: sales pretty quickly, which took Barbie forty years. Mattel just

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Speaker 8: got involved in lawsuits and that I got totally mired

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Speaker 8: and arguing over that rather than trying to address their

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Speaker 8: own product and putting their attention there. And at the

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Speaker 8: same time, you know, they also had this license. They've

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Speaker 8: had a long term partnership with Disney to create toys

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Speaker 8: based on their intellectual property Disney you know, franchises, and

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Speaker 8: one of them was Disney Princesses. So they were making

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Speaker 8: these Disney Princesses dolls, also making barbiees, and they were

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Speaker 8: kind of competing against each other within the company even

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Speaker 8: and the Disney Princess dolls were doing extremely well, the

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Speaker 8: Princess movies were doing extremely well, and I think it

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Speaker 8: just caused further atrophying of their focus on Barbie. Eventually,

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Speaker 8: what happened was Disney wasn't super happy Hasbro, their you know,

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Speaker 8: a long time rival for many many decades, was doing

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Speaker 8: also well by making really big movies based on their toys,

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Speaker 8: mostly Transformers was the first one, and so they argued

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Speaker 8: to Disney they should get the Disney Princess license taken away,

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Speaker 8: and that just showed how badly Barbie was performing. Once

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Speaker 8: they didn't have those doll sales figures to compensate for

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Speaker 8: the Barbie losses anymore. So it was just a lot

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Speaker 8: of things that were going on at the same time,

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Speaker 8: and they were really they really lost the way because

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Speaker 8: they were trying to follow their competitors, and then under

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Speaker 8: this era, they were just trying to copy Disney princesses.

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Speaker 8: They were trying to copy brats instead of trying to

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Speaker 8: do their own thing and stay in tune with what

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Speaker 8: girls actually cared and talked about. What partly spurred on

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Speaker 8: the body makeover of Barbie in twenty sixteen was market

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Speaker 8: research that Mattel did, internal research that showed moms hated Barbie's.

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Speaker 8: They would not buy them for their daughters. They just

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Speaker 8: wouldn't do it. That partly has eased as they have

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Speaker 8: done a lot to improve their image. I wouldn't say

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Speaker 8: they have one hundred percent fixed this issue. So there's

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Speaker 8: still some research out there that's showing people are still

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Speaker 8: associating it the old way, no matter how you know

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Speaker 8: much they've done with the actual new toys.

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Speaker 1: How does the Barbie of today look different from that

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Speaker 1: original Barbie.

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Speaker 8: So the Barbie of today comes in many different body types,

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Speaker 8: many different skin tones, many different hair color, hair type,

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Speaker 8: eye color, as possible you can be with the limits

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Speaker 8: of manufacturing. They're broadening it out to include various types

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Speaker 8: of physical abilities that people have. They have Barbies in

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Speaker 8: a wheelchair, they have Barbies with hearing aids, they have

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Speaker 8: Barbies who have limb differences. They have all sorts of

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Speaker 8: different types of Barbies, and they will probably continue to

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Speaker 8: widen that.

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Speaker 1: And has that barked a Barbie revival in sales that

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Speaker 1: all kinds of different girls can see themselves, see their

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Speaker 1: future selves in Barbie in a way that they couldn't before.

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Speaker 8: Yes, it's definitely sparked a revival in sales. I wouldn't

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Speaker 8: say they're at their past glory again. The peak sales

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Speaker 8: was in nineteen ninety seven when they had that perfect

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Speaker 8: eighties working girls or nineties you know, big hair Barbie

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Speaker 8: that was really appealing to little girls. So they've not

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Speaker 8: quite got to that level again, but it definitely has

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Speaker 8: improved things. And also with the different body types of Barbie's.

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Speaker 8: You have to keep in mind that a big portion

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Speaker 8: of sales of Barbie is the accessories, so the clothes,

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Speaker 8: the house, the car, those were all designed for the

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Speaker 8: old Barbie body type, so the new Barbie you kind

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Speaker 8: of have to get new stuff to go along with that.

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Speaker 8: So it's kind of had an additional boost of their

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Speaker 8: ability to sell a new that the Kirby Barbie can

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Speaker 8: fit into and the new clothes that she can wear.

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Speaker 1: Since Barbie sales haven't rebounded enough, they're hoping that this

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Speaker 1: movie is going to rekindle America's love of Barbie and

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Speaker 1: start selling lots more of them.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly. If you look at the history of Barbie,

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Speaker 8: the times when the sales have been really good and

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Speaker 8: everything's been going really well for the company at large

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Speaker 8: is when they've created something that they kind of call

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Speaker 8: a cultural moment. When the Space Race was on, they

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Speaker 8: made Barbie like an astronaut and she was one of

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Speaker 8: the first women, you know, to go to space. Right

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Speaker 8: body after that, Barby and just kind of keeping up

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Speaker 8: with like these things that create a huge conversation and

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Speaker 8: everybody's talking about the doll. That buzz is usually enough

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Speaker 8: to keep people interested, even if it's sometimes criticism or negativity,

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Speaker 8: and that's exactly what they're trying to do with this

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Speaker 8: movie and why you see the marketing of it is insane.

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Speaker 8: They are trying to make this doll just a subject

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Speaker 8: of conversation again and create this kind of cultural moment

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Speaker 8: that make girls feel like this is it, this is now,

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Speaker 8: this is the cool.

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Speaker 1: Thing after the break. How the Barbie movie came together.

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Speaker 9: I remember I had about three huge boxes for Barbies

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Speaker 9: that were gifted to me, and I was not particularly

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Speaker 9: interested in them. I remember the funniest part was each

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Speaker 9: Barbie will be used about once to have their hair

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Speaker 9: chopped off and then forgotten for the rest of time.

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Speaker 4: My first memorial for Barbie is Bacomi, Colombia, when I

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Speaker 4: used to steal my cousins Barbies so I can use

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Speaker 4: Barbie as a getaway driver and use her car for

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Speaker 4: my Batman figurines.

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Speaker 1: So I never played with Barbie's at all.

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Speaker 3: I was more interested in Star Wars, action figures and Transformers.

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Speaker 6: But this didn't.

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Speaker 3: Stop my mother, who so desperately wanted to have a

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Speaker 3: girly daughter, from purchasing the special holiday edition Barbie every

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Speaker 3: single year.

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Speaker 10: I never really played with Barbie as a kid. I

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Speaker 10: mostly remember, just like the intense amount of parity that

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Speaker 10: existed in like media, she was more often like as

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Speaker 10: a brand, a butt of jokes than actually like the main.

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Speaker 1: Character, Kelly. So now Matteau has decided to make this

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Speaker 1: movie which they think is going to revive Barbie, and

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Speaker 1: they know that they've got to get it right. And

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Speaker 1: you tell in this story how they went about creating

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Speaker 1: this kind of make or break movie.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, it was a fascinating process because you know, I

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Speaker 8: don't even know how many Barbie scripts have been written

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Speaker 8: over the years, but this was an idea that was

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Speaker 8: long running around Hollywood, running around the company. When it

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Speaker 8: really got off the ground was in twenty eighteen Inon Cries,

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Speaker 8: who is from the entertainment world, has never worked in toys.

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Speaker 8: Came from a place called Maker Studios, and he also

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Speaker 8: worked at Fox Kids Europe, and so he knows a

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Speaker 8: lot about actually creating television content. That's his focus. And

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Speaker 8: he said, we need to be an intellectual property company.

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Speaker 8: We need to be in the business of managing franchises.

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Speaker 11: And the opportunity was to continue to succeed in the

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Speaker 11: toy business, fix that area. That that is our foundation.

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Speaker 11: This is what we built, an emotional relationship with fans

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Speaker 11: and from there, once you have that in a good place,

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Speaker 11: you can extend the business and grow into other verticals.

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Speaker 1: That's Mattel's CEO and non Cries and a little plug

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Speaker 1: for the home team.

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Speaker 12: Here.

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Speaker 1: It's from an interview on an upcoming episode of the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg original series called The Circuit with Emily Chang.

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Speaker 8: So enon crist He took the lay of the land

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Speaker 8: and he saw, you know, there's this script going around

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Speaker 8: for Barbie. They had all sorts of different ideas for it.

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Speaker 8: One had Amy Schumer attached, and she was gonna be

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Speaker 8: you know, it's kind of the this parody and she

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Speaker 8: was kicked out of a perfect Barbie world and she

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Speaker 8: goes on these zany adventures. Nobody really liked it. He

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Speaker 8: didn't like it. It was making fun of the doll.

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Speaker 8: It kind of made the doll the butt of the joke.

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Speaker 1: It kind of replicated the whole criticism of Barbie, which

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Speaker 1: is that she was always kind of not really competent

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Speaker 1: and depended on men.

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Speaker 8: Yeah. I also think the company didn't exactly know how

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Speaker 8: to do this. They never had a blockbuster. They've had

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Speaker 8: one like feature film now totally bombed into torribly called

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Speaker 8: Max Steel. Then, so no one said, look, I'm gonna

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Speaker 8: take charge of this. I'm gonna start my own movie division.

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Speaker 8: I'm gonna have my own person run it, who's like

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Speaker 8: a very serious Hollywood player, and we're gonna do it

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Speaker 8: differently in the sense that we're not even gonna bother

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Speaker 8: these filmmakers. We're going to just let them do what

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Speaker 8: they do. Even if we don't like every single thing

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Speaker 8: that they say, and maybe they make us look a

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Speaker 8: little goofy, it's worth it to make great content because

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Speaker 8: that has to be the goal.

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Speaker 1: I guess one of the reasons that they had the

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Speaker 1: confidence to do that, to go let them do their thing,

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Speaker 1: is they attracted some top Hollywood talent to work on

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Speaker 1: this movie.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, getting the right person to run the movie division,

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Speaker 8: that was a big key to getting the right talent.

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Speaker 8: Enon speaks frequently with Richard love It. He's a co

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Speaker 8: chairman at Creative Artists Agencies, very powerful Hollywood agency, and

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Speaker 8: he helped get all these people in line from Mattel.

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Speaker 8: One of his first orders of businesses he wanted to

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Speaker 8: meet Margot Robbie when he became the CEO, and within

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Speaker 8: six weeks of getting to that position, he was at

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Speaker 8: the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Margot

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Speaker 8: Robbie because he saw her as a Barbie.

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Speaker 1: Why why did he see her as a Barbie? Other

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Speaker 1: than the obvious, which is she looks like a barbie.

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Speaker 8: She's very consistently successful. She's a successful producer. She's got

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Speaker 8: her own company, Lucky Chap Entertainment, OSCAR, nominated, done a

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Speaker 8: wide variety of film and also a lot of women

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Speaker 8: focus filmmaking. She's just very wide appeal to the sort

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Speaker 8: of people that they want to speak to.

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Speaker 1: So Mattel landed this superstar to play Barbie really important.

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Speaker 1: But then there were also the other people working on

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Speaker 1: the film to actually write it and make it.

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Speaker 8: That's right along the way, he also got Robbie Brenner

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Speaker 8: to run the whole matel Film division, and she's a

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Speaker 8: very powerful Hollywood producer, probably best known for Dallas Buyer's Club.

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Speaker 12: We wanted to make sure that we were telling a

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Speaker 12: story that felt very universal and very global, and it

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Speaker 12: wasn't just for girls or women, but it also appealed

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Speaker 12: to men as well, and we just wanted to do

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Speaker 12: something that sort of could embrace everybody.

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Speaker 8: And then as Robbie Brenner and Margot Robbie were in

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Speaker 8: conversations and working on the movie together. It was Margot

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Speaker 8: Robbie that actually suggested you should get Greta Gerwig to

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Speaker 8: do the screenplay. And she's really dominant in a ton

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Speaker 8: of this female coming of age genre, probably best known

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Speaker 8: for Ladybird, which is somewhat autobiographical movie of her growing

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Speaker 8: up in Sacramento, and then Little Women, which is the

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Speaker 8: classic retelling the novel of you know, women trying to

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Speaker 8: make it in this man's world. Greta, by her was

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Speaker 8: said yes pretty much right away and got her partner,

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Speaker 8: Noah Bombach to sign on too, and they wrote the script.

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Speaker 8: They did it pretty much without interference, and then they

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Speaker 8: got very attached to the script and Greta ended up

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Speaker 8: becoming the director as well.

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Speaker 1: And you write that the script they came up with

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Speaker 1: was unlike anything they probably would have imagined that they

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Speaker 1: would have come up with for a Barbie movie.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, the script was interesting, you know in Nana said

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Speaker 8: he didn't want something conventional, and she certainly didn't deliver

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Speaker 8: something conventional. She decided, instead of making Barbie the butt

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Speaker 8: of the joke, make the matel executives the butt of

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Speaker 8: the joke and makes fun of the way they kind

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Speaker 8: of managed this brand and all the circumstances that Barbie

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Speaker 8: and female and little girls all the face in real life.

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Speaker 1: So since this movie is in one way supposed to

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Speaker 1: operate as an ad for Barbie, how did Mattel executives

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Speaker 1: react when they saw this script that was kind of

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Speaker 1: open fun at them.

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Speaker 8: They said, they laughed really hard, and they thought it

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Speaker 8: was hilarious, and they say, you know, we're totally in

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Speaker 8: on the joke. I imagine there was a little bit

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Speaker 8: of humility that they had to accept with this, but

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Speaker 8: they did.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, Mattel goes full tilt with Barbie merchandise.

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Speaker 3: When I was a kid, it was kind of a

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Speaker 3: house divided. My sister loved the Barbies and I loved

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Speaker 3: the hot Wheels, so there was conflict for a while,

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Speaker 3: until eventually we just decided that the hot wheels and

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Speaker 3: Barbiees were friends, and the hot wheels were sentient and

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Speaker 3: they could all talk to each other, and then that

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Speaker 3: was just like a weird car Barbie commune.

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Speaker 2: I remember playing with barbiees growing up, especially with my

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Speaker 2: older sister and now my nieces play with those Barbies.

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Speaker 2: Barbie means so much to me because it was one

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Speaker 2: of the first toys that I ever felt represented in.

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Speaker 2: You always think of Barbie as this really tall woman

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Speaker 2: with blonde hair and high heels and blue eyes. But actually,

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Speaker 2: when I went to India for the first time as

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Speaker 2: a kid, I remember picking out two Barbies that looked

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Speaker 2: just like me. You know, they had hair down to

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Speaker 2: their hips and they were wearing traditional Indian langas.

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Speaker 1: So Kelly, they delivered this script and now they've made

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Speaker 1: the movie, and it's really interesting because the movie itself

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Speaker 1: operates on a lot of levels in a way that

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Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't think the silly summer movie would like.

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Speaker 1: Barbie herself is kind of a complicated character.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, she really is, and you know, this movie kind

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Speaker 8: of portrays her as living in this perfect Barbie world

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Speaker 8: and there's snow insecurities for women.

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Speaker 7: It is the best day I e ever, so with yesterday,

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Speaker 7: and so is tomorrow and every.

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Speaker 4: Day native wherever.

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Speaker 8: And you know, it's not just Robbie that plays Barbie.

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Speaker 8: The whole world is full of Barbie's there, and they're

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Speaker 8: all different races and types of people doing different types

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Speaker 8: of jobs. Isa Ray is a president, Barbie doua lipa

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Speaker 8: is a mermaid Barbie. They have all these different types

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Speaker 8: of people. But then she has this existential crisis. We

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Speaker 8: don't really know what causes it, but her feet get flat,

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Speaker 8: you know, unlike Barbie's classic perfectly arched feet, which are

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Speaker 8: permanently in that position. And she thinks about Dad, think

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Speaker 8: about dyangs. So she kind of goes into this journey

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Speaker 8: into the real world.

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Speaker 1: And Margot Robbie as Barbie also has to contend with

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Speaker 1: a Kendall who is really still frozen in the past

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Speaker 1: version of Ken.

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Speaker 8: Oh yeah, So Ken, who's played by Ryan Gosling, has

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Speaker 8: an interesting journey because in the classic real experience of Ken,

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Speaker 8: he was just meant to be an accessory to Barbie.

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Speaker 8: He doesn't have a story. There's a joke in the movie,

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Speaker 8: the CEO of Mattel, who's played by Will ferrells as

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Speaker 8: we never think about Ked ever, he kind of tags

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Speaker 8: along with her, and I think his story is a

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Speaker 8: bit of a mystery. But he embodies some of these

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Speaker 8: old cultural hang ups that have plagued Barbie. They're going

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Speaker 8: into a hospital and he asks to perform an app

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Speaker 8: in deck to me, just one because he's a man.

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Speaker 8: I won't let you do just one app and deck

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Speaker 8: to me.

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Speaker 10: But I'm a man, but not a doctor.

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Speaker 8: Can I talk to a doctor? You are talking to

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Speaker 8: a doctor? There he is doctor?

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Speaker 1: How many good security, so, Kelly. Obviously a lot of

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Speaker 1: attention to the movie, a lot of hype around the trailer,

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Speaker 1: anticipation of the movie coming, but also the merchandise is

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Speaker 1: just everywhere.

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Speaker 8: Yes, the marketing of the Barbie movie is on another level.

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Speaker 8: It's unbelievable. I don't even know how much would have

435
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 8: been spent on the overall marketing, probably as much as

436
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 8: one hundred million dollar budget of the actual movie. Not

437
00:25:57,560 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 8: all of that by Mattel, a lot of that by

438
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:03,399
Speaker 8: Water Brothers. I mean, Mattel has over one hundred merchandise

439
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 8: partners that are just doing Barbie branded things like Barbie sweatshirts,

440
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 8: Barbie dog hats, Barbie cocktail glasses, Barbie rugs. But also

441
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 8: just so much stunt marketing that's been a part of this.

442
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 8: I mean they have this Airbnb Barbie Dreamhouse, so many

443
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 8: Barbie events, and they've got a real World of Barbie

444
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 8: exhibit in LA and you can go take your picture

445
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 8: in a plastic Barbie case. So when we're talking about

446
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 8: Mattel needs to create cultural moments. I would say the

447
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 8: marketing of it is almost as important as the movie itself.

448
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting, as you described this, is that

449
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: it's trying to bring in adults into this world because

450
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff is not for kids.

451
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 8: Yeah, most of the things that I've seen in terms

452
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 8: of the marketing aren't for kids. Very few things are

453
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 8: for kids. There are actual dolls that are based on

454
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 8: the Barbie characters, like there's a Margo Robbie Barbie doll

455
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 8: would be for their traditional three to eight demo, But

456
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 8: so much of this is for adults, appealing to that

457
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 8: older group that is still associating Barbie with the old image.

458
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 8: So this movie is a big opportunity to correct those perceptions,

459
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 8: you know, from Mettel's point of view.

460
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: And I guess rehabilitate these adults view of Barbie, to

461
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: kind of make Barbie safe for their own kids.

462
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:33,120
Speaker 8: Yes. I mean, if you're a mother and you thought

463
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 8: about how bad Barbie made you feel, I'm not going

464
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 8: to make my daughter feel bad by giving her some

465
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 8: perfect body that she will never attain and just making

466
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 8: her look at it. So that's what they're trying to

467
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 8: do is to show no, no, that's not what Barbie

468
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 8: is anymore. Barbie's going to make your daughter feel good,

469
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 8: And so they're trying to convince the mothers. So that's

470
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 8: who they have to rehabilitate the image for. But also

471
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 8: it is about creating new revenue streams for the company.

472
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 1: And that's a really important point because it's not just

473
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: this movie that Mattel is hoping we'll turn itself around.

474
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: It's the beginning of a huge chain of other movies

475
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: that they hope can build on its success.

476
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 8: Yeah, they're hoping that this movie serves as the blueprint

477
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 8: for a bigger business model shift at the company. So

478
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 8: they feel like they're already very successful at just making

479
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 8: marketing toys. And if you think about what success for

480
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 8: one single Barbie movie could be, it would be to

481
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 8: turn it into a franchise. So then you get the

482
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 8: Ken spinoff movie, you get the Skipper TV show, you

483
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 8: get the Barbie theme park. They already have fourteen other

484
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 8: films on different Mattel brands that they have in the works,

485
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 8: and so they want to keep replicating fourteen other movies

486
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 8: just announced, Yeah, but I mean dozens more that they're

487
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 8: developing or working to get announced.

488
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: That aren't about Barbie but are based on other Mattel toys.

489
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 8: Yes, bine large based on the Mattel toys. For the

490
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 8: most part, it's Hot Wheels, it's Matchbox Cars, it's Barney

491
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,719
Speaker 8: the Dinosaur, Polly Pocket, American Girl Dolls. They're going into

492
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 8: the toy chest to try to create new franchises.

493
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: How much money does Mattel hope to make off of

494
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: this Barbie juggernaut.

495
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 8: Mattel didn't put any money into the production or only

496
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 8: maybe a phenomenal amount into the production of the films,

497
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 8: so they don't get box office returns, they don't get

498
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 8: ticket sales. All of their money that they make is

499
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 8: going to be in increasing the value of the company,

500
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 8: increasing sales overall. It's hard to put a number on

501
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 8: that because I think they would probably see it as limitless.

502
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 8: The very highest early estimate I've seen for the domestic

503
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 8: opening weekend, the three day opening weekend in the US

504
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 8: and Canada is eighty million dollars. That would make it

505
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 8: one of the biggest movies of the year, better than

506
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 8: The Flash, better than Indiana Jones. It would be huge.

507
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 8: It's supposed to beat Oppenheimer, which is a movie that

508
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 8: comes up the exact same day, and I would say

509
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 8: overall it'll be in the hundreds of millions worldwide.

510
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: So at the beginning of our conversation we were talking

511
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: about how this is really big bet. Do you think

512
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: that it pays off for Mattel.

513
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 8: I think based on what I've seen, yes, it probably

514
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 8: will pay off. They do seem to have hit the

515
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 8: right notes with everything going viral and there being this

516
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 8: big Barbie craze. That is what they wanted. You know,

517
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 8: Even if toy sales stay flat this year, I'd say

518
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 8: in the coming years they could go up just based

519
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 8: on building off the momentum of this. And even if

520
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 8: nobody sees the movie, they've already gotten all that attention.

521
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: Kelly, are you going to see the movie?

522
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 8: Of course I'm going to see the movie. I can't wait.

523
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the show.

524
00:30:57,960 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.

525
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take.

526
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more

527
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528
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,160
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529
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: Email US questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

530
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531
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,160
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532
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:28,080
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534
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,000
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536
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: definitely check out the show. Emily gets behind the scenes

537
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Speaker 1: with founders, influencers and innovators. I'm west Kasova. We'll be

538
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: back on Monday with another Big Take. Have a great weekend.

539
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 3: I don't leave people there