The efforts of the extensive and expensive marketing campaign — which rival studio executives estimate to cost $150 million, not including the $145 million production budget — are already paying off.

 

“Barbie” debuted in first place at the box office opening weekend, earning $155 million in the U.S. and Canada, easily defeating “Oppenheimer,” ($80.5 million). Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” also scored the best domestic debut of all time for a title directed by a woman.

 

"Brands wanted to become part of this because they saw the film was finding its way into culture in such a dynamic way," Goldstine said. "It stopped becoming a marketing campaign and took on the quality of a movement."

 

The biggest stars of Barbie arguably aren’t Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken but the movie’s uncanny marketing team, which has worked overtime to ensure the doll, movie, and brand are inescapable this summer.

 

Mattel is already working on bringing childhood favorites, Hot Wheels, Polly Pocket and Rock ‘Em Sock ’Em Robots to the big screen, all with the help of big names, including, J.J. Abrams, Vin Diesel and Lena Dunham. 

 

Mattel initiated more than 100 brand partnerships for the Barbie movie. Adweek picks their favorites.

Elon Musk said the company would replace the blue bird with an ‘X,’ which started showing up on the site overnight.

 

Elon Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.

 

Threads daily active user count has dropped by around 70% since launch + Threads downloads have slowed significantly … And while it’s too early to truly gauge what its potential may be, the numbers do raise some legitimate concerns.

 

Twitter 2.0 looks set to continue its trend of re-animating previously in-development Twitter features, and framing them as new opportunities, with its recently retired long-form content option ‘Notes’ set to take flight once again, under a new name.

 

See the full list of headlines here. 

AI and emerging technologies, as well as marketers’ growing investment in the creator economy were the talk of the town during Vidcon 2023, including how AI is expanding into the creating economy.

 

Microsoft recently launched several new AI-powered innovations to enhance search technology and boost workplace productivity. The key announcements include: visual search in Bing chat, Bing chat enterprise, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. 

 

Experts are warning marketers of the potential dangers of using AI platforms in their market mix modeling and econometrics. By looking at the algorithms powering these automated models, experts have identified some serious issues. 

 

Harvard and Stanford economists have found in a new study that ChatGPT can help professionals substantially boost productivity in completing everyday writing tasks. Those who had access completed assignments 40% faster and produced 18% higher quality content.

 

See the full list of headlines here. 

It's been estimated that the global influencer market is currently worth $21.1 billion. So, how do you leverage the credibility and trust that influencers have established with their audiences to help sell your services or products?

 

Brands themselves are being influenced on social media, as we all are, and they want to know if the same could be true for the audiences they're targeting.

 

Google has offered some guidance on how a business can build customer trust through four primary themes. Learn about the four themes and why businesses must first understand what their customers value.

 

“The influencers got very unfair treatment, which I very much regret.” - Donald Tang, Executive Vice Chairman, Shein.

 

Abercrombie & Fitch is tapping into influencers to build standing with young shoppers as it continues on a major turnaround. Shoppers are responding well; last quarter, Abercrombie reported “decade-high” first-quarter net sales and increased its outlook for the rest of 2024.

 

CreaterIQ is developing new metrics to help advertisers measure the impact of their creator campaigns in hopes to become a more established place for marketers. This is helpful for businesses who are looking to establish more analytics around influencer marketing and their performance metrics. 

 

The content creator marketing industry is huge and only continues to grow. As the partnerships between content creators and companies continue, the % of total revenues that come from brand deals continues to rise. This growth, like any other, comes along with risks of complications and the need for regulation. 

 

As the creator economy continues to thrive and evolve, influencer marketing will continue to play an increasingly significant role in shaping the future of relationships between brands and consumers—especially over the next five years.

 

The marketing life cycle had been stuck on “mature” until digital communities were born. Now, I believe marketing is back in the rising star phase of its life cycle.

 

See the full list of headlines here. 

Pinterest is adding another way for brands to drive traffic from the app, with deeplinking from Pins that will direct users back to a specific page in a participating retailer’s own mobile app.

 

TikTok Creative Challenge is just another way TikTok is trying to bring creators and brands together. This challenge enables creators to pitch brands with their clips in hopes of earning money via ad partnerships – brands will be able to review submitted content for potential paid collaborations. 

 

The term “social proof” may sound like an intimidating piece of jargon, but its concept is beautifully simple. In a nutshell, social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people look at the actions and decisions of others to guide their own, particularly when they’re uncertain.

 

Constraints and limitations can sometimes lead to even more creative work as creators are forced to push limits within certain boundaries. ‘Boring’ jobs and industries like financial services and insurance are often perceived as lacking creativity, however, the truth is that these industries have huge potential for inspiring creative thinking.

 

See the full list of headlines here. 

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