After releasing four successful episodes in the spring of 2021, the Barbie You Can Be Anything Series returned in fall of 2021 with the goal of empowering young girls through the message that YOU CAN BE ANYTHING. Continuing into summer 2022, this season gave audiences six new episodes full of role models, girl-led activities, and engaging performances.
With over 3 million views and thousands of inspirational comments across the first four episodes in 2021, Mattel aimed to build upon this positive feedback by rewarding young viewers and their families with six brand new episodes. Featuring an array of fan-favorite guests and new trailblazing women thought-leaders, each episode focused on several exciting themes, including aerospace, animals, fashion, and art.
Each piece of content led back to build awareness of The Dream Gap, which has shown that beginning at the age of five, many girls develop self-limiting beliefs and begin to think they're not as smart and capable as boys. Barbie launched the Dream Gap Project in 2018 to give girls the resources and support they need to continue believing in themselves, and continues to devote considerable energy into combatting this notion to show young girls that they can truly be anything they want to be.
The continuation of the You Can Be Anything Series aimed to:
● Reach children aged 6-10, while engaging parents
● Inspire young girls
● Generate additional media and social buzz around the Barbie brand purpose
● Capitalize on the success of the initial four episodes
In collaboration with Mattel, we wrote and developed an additional six episodes that covered key themes in young girls’ development while ensuring that the subject matter was not only relatable to children, but accessible to adults as well. We also chose to shorten the episodes from 20-25 minutes in 2021 to 8-10 minutes in 2022, helping to keep our target demographic engaged with more digestible content pieces.
The cross-generational content featured these role models and fan-favorite influencers allowing us to reach our target demographic in a meaningful way.
We managed to find a way to navigate live production around COVID restrictions while booking talent, developing art and creative design, animating, blocking, scriptwriting, editing, and seamlessly executing post-production and cutdowns.
Episodes 5 & 6 debuted during October’s International Day of the Girl. Subsequent episodes dropped in March 2022, International Women’s Month, for maximum relevance and impact. Episodes 9 and 10 dropped in the spring and summer, respectively. All episodes were available via Barbie’s YouTube channel for maximum reach.
The six episodes were:
Let’s Get Creative: Featuring music producer Ester Dean, dancers from the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, an exclusive music video launch from DJ Sparkle of Girls Make Beats, dancer and trainer Meagan Kong, plus a knitting tutorial from reporter and artist, Shayna Rose
Dress for Success: Gold-medal gymnast Laurie Hernandez introduced viewers to several inspiring female role models, including aspiring astronaut Alyssa Carson, medical hero and Barbie Role Model Dr. Audrey Sue Cruz, veterinarian Dr. Niccole Bruno, track & field medalist Sydney McLaughlin, and choreographer Chani Bell.
Get Inspired: Featuring Lisa Stelly, the founder of Fancy Sprinkles, iconic television producer Shonda Rhimes, the women-led roller-skating club Moxi Skate Team, and Deepica Mutyala, Founder and CEO of Live Tinted, a multicultural beauty community
Express Yourself: Feeaturing animator and author Ashlyn Anstee, Indian hip-hop dance group BFunk, and Smash + Tess founder Ashley Freeborn
Mission DreamStar - Let’s Go To Space: In this groundbreaking episode, we joined NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Raja Chari as Barbie traveled to space for the first time in her iconic career. Those who tuned in were treated to majestic views from space, learned how astronauts grow their own food, and even met the a couple of ISS robots!
The Future of Pink is Green With Jane Goodall: Mattel recently unveiled the newest Barbie in its Inspiring Women series—a doll made in the likeness of world-renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall. To celebrate this release, Episode 10 featured the legendary Dr. Goodall as its guest.
Each episode blended panel discussions, Q&A sessions, Barbie-animated content, engaging activities, and music.
Episodes 5 and 6 also integrated Time For Kids – a platform that uses kid reporters to provide a unique perspective for kids, by kids – to appeal to our demographic even further.
Each episode was promoted on Barbie’s social platforms and lives on her YouTube page available to watch anytime, helping expand our reach to young girls and their parents all over the world.
While the initial four episodes of the Barbie You Can Be Anything series set a benchmark, receiving almost 3 million views globally, subsequent episodes shattered expectations, with an additional 10+ million views and inspiring young girls everywhere.
Metrics for the series to-date include:
13.5M views
270k hours of watch time
26M impressions
The series has become a tentpole for the Barbie brand, and we are currently producing additional episodes with some of the most legendary women leaders and trailblazers in the world; most notably an episode with the multi-talented Grammy Award-winning artist Gloria Estefan.
Appearances with astronauts on the International Space Station and alongside Dr. Jane Goodall have solidified the cultural impact that Barbie has on young girls throughout the world. These female role models have recognized how significant their respective Barbie partnerships have had on their young audience, such as:
“My entire career, I’ve wanted to help inspire kids to be curious and explore the world around them—just like I did when I first traveled to Tanzania 62 years ago. I’m thrilled to partner with Barbie and encourage young children to learn from their environment and feel a sense that they can make a difference.” - Dr. Jane Goodall
The Goodall Barbie doll was trending on Twitter upon its release, and the story was picked up by major news outlets all over the world. Even Chelsea Clinton posted about her chat with Dr. Goodall to discuss the impact of this partnership, helping broaden the YCBA Series reach even further.
