Mattel's Moschino Barbie Ad: Persuasion and Effectiveness
This paper analyzes Mattel's 2015 Moschino Barbie 30-second television advertisement, which gained widespread media attention for being the first Barbie commercial to feature a boy. The paper begins with a brief overview of Mattel as a company, noting its major brands, revenue figures, and distribution relationships. It then describes the advertisement's visual and audio elements, identifies the persuasive techniques employed — including aspirational luxury branding through the Moschino co-brand and inclusive gender representation — and evaluates the ad's effectiveness for both its child end-users and adult buyer audiences. The paper concludes that the spot successfully achieved two strategic goals: strengthening the Barbie brand's glamour and expanding its perceived target market.
- Company Overview: Mattel's brands, revenues, and marketing profile
- Advertisement Description: Visual, audio, and copy elements of the spot
- Persuasive Techniques: Aspirational branding and inclusive gender representation
- Evaluation of Effectiveness: Ad effectiveness for child and adult audiences
- Conclusion: Dual strategy achieved brand and market goals
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its analysis in concrete company data — revenue figures, marketing spend percentages, and distribution relationships — before analyzing the ad, giving the argument credibility and context.
- It identifies two distinct persuasive techniques (aspirational luxury branding and inclusive gender representation) and evaluates them separately, keeping the analysis focused and organized.
- The effectiveness evaluation distinguishes between the two components of the target market — child end-users and adult buyers — demonstrating an understanding of how advertising functions differently for different audience segments.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied marketing analysis: it moves from descriptive observation (what the ad shows) to interpretive analysis (why those elements were chosen) to evaluative judgment (how well they worked). This three-step pattern — describe, interpret, evaluate — is a reliable structure for any advertisement or media artifact analysis assignment.
Structure breakdown
The paper has four functional sections: a company context section that establishes Mattel's business profile; an advertisement description that catalogs visual, audio, and copy elements; a persuasion analysis section that names and explains each technique; and an effectiveness evaluation that weighs outcomes against the ad's stated dual goals. Each section builds on the previous one, making the argument cumulative rather than repetitive.
Company Overview
Mattel is a producer of children's toys, including the well-known industry brands Fisher-Price, Barbie, and Hot Wheels. The company has strategic partnerships with several other major brands such as Disney, WWE, Nickelodeon, and Warner Bros. The company did nearly $6.5 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year and turned a profit of just over $900 million. Nearly half of its revenues come from international markets.
The Barbie brand is the most important for the company, with just over $1 billion in annual revenues. The company's marketing is focused around the end-of-year period, when gift-buying for children reaches its peak. Mattel utilizes most forms of media for its advertising, including traditional 30-second television spots. The company spent $733.2 million, or 12.2% of net sales, on its marketing efforts in the last fiscal year (Mattel 2014 Annual Report). In terms of distribution, its three largest customers are Walmart, Toys R Us, and Target, worth a combined $2 billion, or one-third of total company sales (Mattel 2014 Annual Report).
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