Ep 55: FOMO-Fueling Success: Inside Barbie's Marketing Campaign

EPISODE 55

 
 
 
“Barbie is a really amazing example of the power of social proof, the power of a street team, the power of third party endorsement.”
— Christina Edwards

I wasn't planning on seeing the Barbie movie, but a huge shift happened... Wouldn't you like to know the secret behind the phenomenal marketing campaign of the Barbie movie, and how it managed to generate buzz well beyond its release date? Join us as we unwrap this fascinating case study, exploring the power of social proof, user-generated content, influencer marketing, and how all these elements conspired to create a personal FOMO, that led ME to the theater for a girl's night out.

But it's not just movies that can leverage social proof; charitable organizations can too. We shift gears and look at Charity Water, a global non-profit organization that uses social proof and powerful endorsements to fuel its mission. We discuss the importance of having an advocate or a coach to navigate potential challenges and drive change.

Want to learn how to create powerful movements and amplify the impact of your cause, join the waitlist for Amplify Social Impact. Tune in to get insights on how harnessing the power of social proof can foster a sense of belonging and significantly elevate your product or cause.

Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded?  Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect

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TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here, ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go. I'm in the middle of uploading a bunch of new content to one of my courses, amplify Social Impact, and I had this like ching light bulb moment, and so I'm hopping on here on the podcast to share with you an idea of. I've heard you've heard the word social proof before. Maybe it's very, very marketing-speaking. I want to give you an example of what social proof is like in the wild and how it has shown up for me lately, in a way that basically, social proof is kind of like a third-party endorsement. It can be. This is proof of what we're doing works. It can be in the form of a testimonial, right, but really, what it acts, what happens on the other side of social proof, is FOMO. Fomo is fear of missing out, right. Fomo can be. So one flavor of social proof that can happen is somebody who has not already taken action and has that feeling of like, well, shoot, I don't want to miss it. Ooh, maybe I should pay attention. I've seen this piece of content. I've gotten their emails. I've been curious about this thing, this mission, but I haven't really taken action yet. But now, man, the FOMO is really piling up, and now I'm seeing that I really want to take action. That's FOMO. So for me, here's what happened. So I'm recording this in August of 2023 and we are towards the end of summer and we are at the tail. I don't know if we're at the tail end, I don't know if it's going to have another peak to it, but we've peaked on Barbie Mania. The movie came out, I think, in early July, and there was so much buzz in what I call the pregame. This is the piece, the first piece, that I teach in Amplify Social Impact. So your launch campaign for your fundraiser, or whatever it is, does not start when you Press, press, go. It does not start on day one of your fundraiser. So if your fundraiser starts on December 1st, that is not when your campaign should start. Your campaign should actually start in advance, a few weeks for the pregame. And boy did Barbie have some solid pregame Barbie. We saw a ton of things happening. So we saw user-generated content. So people who maybe were Going to premieres before it had been released, posting about it, people who were Using like social media templates. There were some cool templates where that were going around, where people were making themselves like the Barbie, barbie logo, cover thing, whatever. There was just already a bunch of buzz. There was also media about it. So there was media coverage. So the buzz started and I will say, during the pregame, my general thought was not for me. Never been a Barbie, barbie girl, never, ever. I think I had like one or two Barbies growing up. It's what happens, maybe when you have a big brother. You just there was not a lot of barbie in my house, so my thought was not for me. Okay, pregame was a while, though I would say there was quite a bit of lead time for this. Then the actual movie was released and what did I experience? I experienced a little sprinkling of the FOMO. So maybe some friends, some friends of friends, some Influencers, thought leaders that I follow online, started posting about it. Right, I started seeing, like you know, girls, friends, whoever's going to the movie theater, getting all dressed up, going to the movie, having like a night of it, having a go of it. I also saw quite a few articles written about it. I saw a bunch of social posts talking about it, saw a lot of third-party endorsements. That's what we do with a street team. That's what we teach Inside of amplify social impact. Is this idea of it's not Barbie talking about Barbie, the movie. It is other people using their platforms To talk about this thing they experienced and to show people about why they care about it. So I started to see, okay, there is a lot of talk about Barbie, but even at that point so like we're way into July now, I'm like Wasn't planning on seeing it, probably still not for me. And you might be thinking like, really, but I just I don't know. I was just like, yeah, it's probably not my, not my GM. So, fast forward, now we're into August and it hasn't stopped. Like, if anything, this is a perfect example of a campaign that is not a one-week long campaign. We really saw more and more coverage. We saw more people really endorsing it. We saw more people talk about. One of the things that really stuck with me is hearing people who I Like follow, identify with, look up to talk about why they liked the movie, talk about some of the surprising things about it, using their own platforms to talk about it, and then some of the people I was like, wow, talking about no, I'm gonna go see it a second time, I'm gonna go see it again. So then it's really starting to like permeate the second or third layer for me and like, hmm, and now we're like towards the end of August, and it wasn't until this past week. Again, we're now months into this campaign. This idea of social proof, this idea of a street team, right, this idea of generating, generating buzz, just work towards the end of August now. And I said to my husband I kind of want to see the Barbie movie. And I was like I kind of don't want to see it with you, don't want to see it with my mom, want to take her, and we'll have a girl saying we'll go see it. He was like, yeah, sure, good, sounds fun, but it took that long. Why am I telling you all this? Why are we talking about the Barbie movie? Because it is such a beautiful example of a couple things it is for, first and foremost, it is a really amazing example of the power of social proof, the power of a street team, the power of third party endorsement, meaning Not Barbie putting a bunch of ads on billboards and Facebook and TV, ads that wouldn't have moved the needle for me. I didn't need to see a commercial about it. In fact, I'm not interested in seeing commercial about it. For me, it was other people friends and thought leaders that I admire saying this is really good. If you haven't seen it, what do you do? And you need to go see it. And hearing that more than once, because I needed to hear more than one time my friend say, oh my gosh, it was so fun, or you know this. This point in the story really surprised me and here's why it matters like it took layers of hearing about it, which again speaks to the point of staying the course in a campaign and hearing about it from multiple angles. So it's just a fascinating dive into that and into the power of you know what I want to be part of. I want to know about this conversation, and right now I cannot be part of this conversation because I haven't seen it yet, so I can be part of it as much as I kind of approximately know about it. But they really have done a really amazing job of creating a movement around it online. And here's the best part what I teach and amplify social impact, which is what I call my digital ambassador program and influencer marketing course, designed for nonprofits and social impact businesses. That's where I teach this concept of like. How do we reach out to somebody? Who do we even reach out to? What is the ask? What do we say to them? And then, when they're on our street team which is the method that I've created when they say yes, when an influencer says yes, we want to partner with you, we care about your cause, it does align with our what do I say to them? What do I give them? Because we never want it to feel like board or committee work. So that's the process I teach in this course and it's such a perfect example of like, what it looks like and the power of it in the wild. However, I want to give you the caveat that so many nonprofits have gone through this course and they don't need Barbie level of coverage to 10X their normal fundraising amount, right, they don't need this wild, wild, wild amount of coverage in order to see huge results from it, and that's the power of just getting that third party endorsement. That's the power of your social proof out in the wild, where it's not you standing on, you know a soapbox talking about what your organization does. Instead, it's another person who has been impacted, who cares about your organization, who uses their influence to talk to their community about your organization. That's the shift. One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot lately and saying to my students a lot lately is I actually want you to create less content. I want you to spend less time creating your own content on your own networks and instead shift the way you're spending time in marketing and start developing those partner relationships who can help influence and endorse your mission and your cause and boost you up and champion you a few times, a few key times of year. Okay, so that's what we teach in it. So I had to share this like moment of, like full circle. Now I want to see the Barbie movie. Somebody who was like maybe I'll watch it when it's on demand in six months. Right Now I'm like I would like to go pay the theater price to go have the full experience. I'm ready. Like that's a pretty big about face. If you know me, you'd be like huh, wow, okay. And then I want to give you another example, because I was like what is happening? What is happening Of this happening again? So again we're in the summer here and the other, I would say, big thing that has been happening is Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift has been on tour. Taylor Swift's tickets have been. I don't have to tell you a just madness, insanity, crashing ticket master's website trying to get tickets. I personally am not a huge Taylor Swift fan. I just I like my punk rock, I like my. I just it's typically mainstream music isn't my thing, but I get it. I appreciate her. If that makes sense, I appreciate her. So that's all fine and good. I reached this point lately where so many people have been going to her live shows and talking about her craft and talking about the level of her performance and talking about, like, the just absolute show she puts on right, the theater behind it, and I found myself going oh, that kind of sounds kind of fun. Oh, I kind of want to go. Ooh, a night where you're just dancing and singing and just enjoying the show, I just I'm like it was like totally ignited again that piece of like maybe I'm missing something. Ooh, maybe, maybe I need to go to this. Ooh, I want to be part of this conversation. Let me learn more. It piqued a curiosity that has never been piqued for her. So that is the power of people saying and using their own platforms, their own voices, to say I really dig this thing and I'm sharing it with you and you might dig it too. That's it. That's more powerful than a Facebook ad, that's more powerful than any other paid ad, right? Because you get a true endorsement from somebody you trust. And I had to share those experiences with you that I've had lately in the wild where I find myself going oh my gosh, this is so funny that this is my current experience of things and it's true and it works, and it's a strategy that if you're not currently using, you should put at the top of your list before starting a TikTok, before starting some sort of other marketing strategy in place. It's such a great strategy to get people to join your cause, advocate for you. Sometimes people will use this almost in a peer-to-peer fundraising way, which it works really, really well for right, but it's such a good way to. One of the other things is this idea of churn right, this idea of a donor and support or churn, which is always something we're looking at like combating that churn right. So imagine getting more people into your world, more people who know about your mission and your organization, getting those thought leaders who say, yes, I want to be a part of your campaign, I want to help advocate for you, and they stay with you. They stay with you the way that a board member may stay with you for several years. That's what we like to see, with a straight team that is rocking and rolling and doing very, very well. We don't see the churn right where they hop on for one peer fundraiser or they hop on for one campaign and then they leave. No, it's something that compounds and builds over time. So we get almost that charity water effect. Charity water is one of the few organizations that is doing a version of this right, where they have advocates for their organization regularly saying me I aligned with what you're doing. This is this is a mutual alignment and I care about what you do and I want to help and I want to use my platforms for good. So if that is interesting to you, I want to invite you to come and hang out with us and join Amplify Social Impact. We are opening doors very, very soon. The best way to learn about it is to go to splitedcoursescom forward slash waitlist and I will immediately let you know as soon as we open doors and we always have fun bonuses and you have coaching support through the program. So if you have specific questions like, well, what about our mission? Who would align with with us? Who should I ask? I'm at, I'm at a brick wall then I can help you work through those pieces. So I guess I got to go see the Barbie movie. I guess that's what's on my list and if you're like me and this resonated with you, I'd love to hear more. So drop me a message and tell me all about it and I'll see you next time. If you ask me. Everyone should have a coach, especially you. I want to invite you to schedule a free discovery call with me. Go to splendidatlcom, forward slash contact. You'll see my calendar there. Book a call with me. You'll learn about my smart growth method, where we can grow your business or organization sustainably with ease and massive impact.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

 
 
PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindset, productivityComment