"Imagine the Possibilities" of Purpose Branding

In the Fortune article, "How to Build a Breakthrough Brand," Jim Stengel, head of branding consultancy at the Jim Stengel Co. and former global marketing head at Procter and Gamble, recognized purpose advertising as one of the biggest trends in the industry to emerge within the past 10 years, and he cited Mattel, owner of Barbie, as one brand that has utilized this strategy particularly well.

In late 2015, Barbie launched a new advertising campaign to accompany the release of its new product line that included dolls that represented a more diverse population of women. Barbie dolls are now available in a variety of skin tones and body types, as shown below.

To increase sales, and to reclaim Barbie's position as a leader in the toy industry after a two year period of declining sales, the company decided to return to the founder's mission for the dolls. The original goal was to get young girls to think of themselves in various roles, through playing with Barbies that have endless possibilities of professions, and to, in turn, inspire confidence through play.

With this strategy in mind, Barbie launched its new marketing strategy to portray its purpose, labeled by the tagline--"You can be anything."

One of the ads that is a part of the "You can be anything" campaign, is titled "Imagine the Possibilities," and it shows real reactions, captured by hidden cameras, to girls imagining everything that they can become. For instance, one girl comes into a classroom and introduces herself as the professor for the day. Another girl greets pet owners as their vet. Other professions depicted include a soccer coach and museum tour guide. The end of the commercial shows a girl imagining that her Barbie is a professor to portray that playing with Barbie invokes aspirational thinking and confidence to pursue those dreams. Check out the ad below.

Another ad included in this campaign, released during this year's Super Bowl is called "Dads who Play Barbie," and as the title suggests, the ad shows dads playing Barbies with their daughters, and states that "Time spent in her imaginary world is an investment in her real world," encouraging dads to not only buy Barbies for their daughters, but to actively engage with them in play. Of course, the ad ends with the tagline, "You can be anything."

Barbie's rebranding to get back to the message of purpose its founder intended, is an extremely effective example of the current trend of purpose advertising. Since the launch of the campaign, Barbie's worldwide sales have increased 15.8 percent, according to Fortune magazine.