MATTEL
A 2-day pop up experience in NYC to celebrate Barbie’s 60th Anniversary
ROLE
Associate Creative Director, Experience Design, R/GA
KEY DELIVERABLES
Immersive retail pop-up experience
VLOG station
“Last Generation of Firsts” photo booth
The Ask
Create noise around Barbie’s 60th Anniversary coinciding with International Women’s Day.
The Solution
An immersive pop-up experience set in New York City to help girls envision the futures of their dreams.
My role on this project was to direct the design and execution of the digital experiences within the exhibit.
On the weekend of International Women’s Day, R/GA partnered with Barbie to inspire girls to dream big. Barbie has been breaking boundaries and sparking imaginations since her debut, and has had over 200 careers. Now more than ever, girls deserve to see their own limitless potential reflected around them.
Our Challenge
Research shows that starting at age five, many girls begin to develop self-limiting beliefs and think they're not as smart and capable as boys. They stop believing they can be anything. This issue is called the Dream Gap, and to help close it, Barbie launched the Dream Gap Project in 2018. This project is part of Barbie’s ongoing effort to provide inspiring, impactful content to reach girls.
The pinnacle experience was the “Last Generation of Firsts” exhibit, where a hall displayed empty Barbie boxes of careers that have yet to be held by women. Kids could envision what they wanted to be, step into the box to the sound of a standing ovation, while it transformed from “Barbie” to her name, as her loving fans snapped photos.
Barbie has been celebrating female role models and inspiring girls since 1959. But she isn’t done yet.
There are glass ceilings left to be shattered. And Barbie believes this generation of young women will be the ones to shatter them—that today’s girls will be The Last Generation of Firsts.
Space sketches and experience flows helped engage technology partners to execute the digital photo booth experience.
A custom app managed the queue on event night, allowing each child to share who they wanted to become.
Connected to the giant Barbie package photo box, prompts facilitated a conversation between Barbie ambassadors at the event and the young guests, as they imagined their dream careers.
Built by technology partner Thinkingbox.
We set up prompts and a custom UX for kids to create their own vlog just like Barbie’s, right from her dreamhouse bedroom space. The video was sent directly to a parent’s mobile device.
How it all came together
In addition to the digital experiences, the event made a huge splash with a journey through Barbie’s past, a celebration of the present, and a glimpse into how she could affect our girls’ futures.
Team formation*
Strategy
Adrian Barrow
Kelsey Karson
Albert Kim
Andrea Solomon
Christine Song
Creative
Jill Bradley
Elena Dick
Lydia Dunay
Lars Hansson
AJ Hassan
Ryan Inkley
Christian Jang
Tommy Korad
Colleen Miller
Mariya Munsey
Technology
Gavin Leader
Sharingbox [partner]
Thinkingbox [partner]
Production + Client Services
Nicky Bell
Chris Einhauser
Lauren Powzyk
Jannica Robertson
Betiel Solomon
Jai Tedeschi
*If we’ve worked together and I’ve missed a credit be assured it was my lapse in memory—message me and I’ll quickly resolve!