Barbie wants to get kids in the giving mood with its new “Wishes from the Heart” online and social media campaign.
Until Dec. 31, children can submit a wish for someone special in their lives on the Barbie My Dreams website. For every wish submitted, the Mattel brand will donate $1 to Make-a-Wish Canada. Barbie will also donate $1 for tweets that encourage people to “spread joy with #BarbieWishes.”
“The brand tagline for Barbie is ‘anything is possible’ and we’ve always talked about that in terms of imagination or role play, but for the holidays we wanted to extend that into the whole giving idea,” said Lu Huang, senior marketing associate, Barbie, Mattel Canada. “So we’re asking girls to make a wish for their moms or loved ones and the idea is that it could come true because anything is possible.”
Kids can either record a video message or draft a written wish on the website. Submissions will be sent to the user’s email address, so they can share it with the intended recipient.
In December, Barbie will release a video of children describing their holiday wishes, and will donate $1 to Make-A-Wish each time it is shared from the Barbie YouTube page. In total, Barbie will donate a maximum of $15,000 to Make-a-Wish Canada.
The brand is promoting the campaign through on-air billboards and The Zone integration on the Corus-owned YTV network. It also has a mom-blogger outreach program to get moms to encourage their daughters to enter.
Aside from the fact that “spreading the joy” is more easily done through social media, Huang said the thinking behind doing an online/social media campaign was to reach moms.
“With Barbie, the girls are driving the purchase but it’s mom who is ultimately making the purchase,” she said. “With the movement of moms into that social sphere… we wanted to make sure that we’re out where everyone else is. Traditionally we would have done things in print and [traditional] media, but we’re trying to hit everyone where they currently are.”
As part of the campaign, Barbie will fulfil at least one wish, but Huang said that’s mainly for legal purposes. “There were a lot of legalities that we had to jump through, so we do have to fulfil one. But we don’t want girls to think of it as, ‘I’m making a wish so it can be fulfilled’—it’s more the sentiment behind it.”
Barbie worked with TrojanOne (promotional) Strategic Objectives (PR), Carat (media) and Mode Media (blogger outreach) on the campaign.
