Experience Economy Campaign Evaluation

Olivia Burd

Prof. Fube

Writing for Digital Media

November 3, 2024

Experience Economy Campaign Evaluation

Warner Bros Pictures: Barbie Movie Selfie Generator

Summary

This campaign was created by a collaboration between the app PhotoRoom and Warner Bros, making both companies the commissioners of this work. The Barbie Movie Selfie Generator campaign was an AI created photo generator that was used as a way to promote the 2023 Barbie movie.

The core objective of this campaign was to promote the Barbie movie across social media. These two companies created something that was easy to use, and didn’t take much time or effort. This campaign also worked “to give fans a new way to participate in the Barbie conversation” (Rhodes, 2023). Creating “unique experiences and content” (Rhodes, 2023), also played a role in the success of this campaign. As social media continues to grow, celebrities and influencers are finding ways to make their content unique but also trendy. This campaign allowed them to do that, while promoting the movie as well. This was the objective that Warner Bros and PhotoRoom had in mind.

The messaging tactics for this campaign are what made it so successful as well as unique for a movie campaign. Since the campaign focuses on being user-generated content, the experience aspect is considered to be below-the-line. The technology that is used allows the consumer to “upload an image of themselves to be instantly plugged into the Barbie film’s promotional poster” (Barr, 2023). However, because this campaign “has garnered immense popularity, amassing over 13 million uses” (Cruz, 2023) and there was no specific target audience it can also be considered above-the-line.

The press was able to amplify this campaign because the promotional poster was what was being published across news platforms, and that same poster was the key part of this campaign. Although news sources weren’t necessarily talking about the campaign itself, the poster was frequently on the news across the world.

Success Assessment

Comment Velocity

The original post on Instagram about the Barbie Selfie Generator has 404 comments. The 3 posts that highlight all of the actors and actresses generated images have a combined total of 9,137 comments. Most of these comments are from when the posts were originally uploaded meaning velocity was high.

Tone of Comments

Majority of the commenters are excited about seeing their favorite actors and actresses shared as a part of this campaign.

Reactions

The original post on Instagram about the campaign itself has 123,000 likes. The three separate posts about the cast members have a total combined likes of 1,623,000 likes. The account has 1.4 million followers, meaning each follower “liked” at least one of the three posts; assuming consumers' reactions are positive.

Brand Specific Shares

Number of shares is consistent across both curated content and branded content. The consumers are interested and sharing regardless.

Volume of Mentions

Across social media, the Barbie Selfie Generator has been used more than three million times. On social media this is counted by the number of times people use the name of hashtags along with their image.

Frequency of Mentions

When the campaign was first shared, the mention frequency was much higher because of all of the other marketing that was happening at the same time. Mentions have since slowed down significantly.

Tone and Context of Mentions

In most posts, the poster is excited about the movie and happy to feel included in the marketing. Consumers seem excited about the unique customization of this campaign.

Customer Satisfaction Index

Based on the number of people that used the selfie generator, it seems that people were satisfied with the campaign.

Reviews

Consumers appreciated that the campaign was easy to use and therefore easy to get involved. There was also a satisfaction that it was customizable and everyone could make it their own.

Social Engagement Trend Shifts

Engagement was high through the entire campaign period and up until the week of release, however, after the movie had been released for some time, engagement died down.

A large part of this campaign's success can be attributed to celebrity and influencer participation; many of them being a reason the campaign made it across all social media platforms. Because the campaign was so accessible, a large majority of celebrities and influencers posted their Barbie selfies. Celebrity participation began when “each star [in the movie] released their own poster on their personal social media” (Staff, 2023). When the stars all posted the matching campaign photos of themselves it got the attention of consumers.

The legal and ethical concerns with this campaign all center around consumers' privacy. In fact, “there is growing apprehension about how these platforms handle users’ personal data. These AI tools collect loads of user data, including email and IP addresses, which may be shared with third parties” (Silajdzic, 2023). Many people have become increasingly aware of the risk of data breaches and the risk of putting too much information online. These concerns may have stopped some individuals from participating in this campaign.

Recommendations

The design for the Ken version of this same campaign was essentially the same as the Barbie version. If the design for Ken was different and slightly less feminine I think that it would have been more widely used, therefore expanding the audience and reach of this campaign more. Most of the celebrities that participated were female so this suggestion would also help attract more male celebrities. Besides the lack of male inclusion, there was also a lack of diversity and inclusion in other areas. The celebrity participation lacked disability representation as well as the LGBTQA+ community. I would recommend finding a way to make sure that there are celebrities representing different communities.

With AI gaining popularity, I think it’s important that companies have transparency with their consumers about how data is being used. Consumers expressed concerns about this in regards to the AI aspect of this campaign, making them avoid participation. If there was more transparency regarding this, there may be more participation.

Citations:

Baar, A. (2023, July 27). “Barbie” ai selfie generator goes viral with 13M users. Marketing Dive. https://www.marketingdive.com/...

Cruz, J. D. (2023, July 28). “Barbie” ai selfie generator racks up more than 13 million uses. Tech Times. https://www.techtimes.com/arti...

Rhodes, N. (2023, April 10). Barbie Selfie Generator & Revolutionizing Marketing with AI. OutSnapped.com. https://outsnapped.com/barbie-...

Silajdzic, M. (2023). Barbie Selfie Generators May Pose a Privacy Risk. VPN Overview. https://vpnoverview.com/news/b...