It took more than 10 years to bring Mattel’s fashion doll brand Barbie to the big screen, but boy, was it worth it.

Barbie, the live-action film based on the toy of the same name and co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig, became 2023’s highest-grossing movie globally with $1.44 billion earned at the box office, and it scored the biggest opening for a woman director in history. It also became a masterclass in cross-promotion, with more than 100 brand partnerships powering its premiere.

Two years later, Barbie has proven to be more than just about breaking records and barriers—it’s provided a blueprint to brands and studios that see brand-backed and brand-activated movies as reliably good business.

“We’re seeing a lot of brands want to ride this wave and try to replicate that success,” Lily Gluzberg, VP at cultural marketing agency 160over90, told Marketing Brew last year.

By the time Barbie came out, the brand takeover of Hollywood was already underway. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, based loosely on the Nintendo video game franchise, became the highest-grossing video game movie of all time the same year as Barbie’s release, while the biographical sports drama Air, based on the origin of Nike’s Air Jordan, raked in $90 million worldwide despite being, as one critic put it, “what amounts to a two-hour ad for Nike and the uber-rich.” There were also films centered on the origin stories of the video game Tetris, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and the BlackBerry, as well as one focused on Beanie Babies.

Some brands that have found their way into the Hollywood lights often discover a big upside. The Brad Pitt-led F1: The Movie, released this summer, for example, was “tremendously helpful” for driving awareness and fandom around F1, Motorsport Network CEO Werner Brell told Marketing Brew this fall.

When brand movies are done well, they can become much bigger than just a trip to the theater. Rather, they’re “part of a social movement,” Stephanie Dolan, US entertainment sector leader at Deloitte, told us, “and it actually transcends a-moment-in-time marketing.” That, she added, can allow for the audience journey to continue on with the brand long after the credits roll.

Continue reading here.—KS, JN

A doodle on a Christmas list isn’t a mistake or a smudge but an opportunity for a new friend in Disney’s heartwarming holiday short directed by Taika Waititi.

Over the course of the nearly three-minute spot, from adam&eveDDB, a young girl finishes her Christmas list with a doodle and leaves it for Santa, who mistakenly interprets the doodle as a request. Said doodle comes to life under the Christmas tree, and a new friendship is born.

Using a “logical misunderstanding” from Santa as a way into the narrative served as a fresh approach to familiar holiday story beats for the creative team, Darren Beresford, creative director, adam&eveDDB, told Marketing Brew.

Throughout the spot, there are moments where Disney products factor into the story and can naturally create change, making for a seamless narrative that can connect with audiences, Beresford explained.

“There’s products all over the ad,” he said, “but the thing is, because it’s Disney and because that is all over the place anyway, because a little girl’s bedroom is naturally filled with that sort of stuff, you don’t feel it like product placement.”

Read more here.—KM

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Sierra Ripoly is the head of integrated communication at Flamingo, a body-care brand. She has also worked in marketing and social media strategy at brands including Danessa Myricks Beauty, Ring Concierge, Thrive Causemetics, and eos.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? The shower beer collab we did with woman-owned brewery Talea is one of my proudest projects. Shower beers have always been framed as a bro thing, but we knew women loved beer too, so we made a version just for them—a beer you can sip while shaving your legs. It was cheeky, disruptive, and unapologetically for women. What made it even more special was partnering with another woman-owned business and seeing the joy it sparked. It wasn’t just a product launch—it was a cultural wink to women everywhere that said, “Hey, this space is ours too.”

What’s your favorite ad campaign? I thought the Tower 28 campaign with Toni Bravo was such a smart way to bring in an influencer of the moment to authentically talk about products, specifically blush, that her audience already looks to her for. Toni has proven herself as the queen of blush with past work for Rhode and other leading beauty brands, and she brought that authority into this collaboration. What I loved was how hands-on she was in creating some of the shades because she recognized there were gaps to fill based on what she saw in her own collection around undertones and payoff. The result was a launch that felt aspirational, practical, and thoughtful. Having worked with Toni in my former role at Danessa Myricks Beauty and now in my current role at Flamingo, I’ve seen firsthand how she knows exactly how to tap into audiences authentically, and this campaign perfectly showcased that strength.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: You probably wouldn’t guess I skipped second grade. Or that I sing out loud on my morning walks (yes, unapologetically). And one more fun fact—I have a Prince tattoo.

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Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• CAA, the talent and sports agency, acquired the brand licensing and management firm Beanstalk.
• Intuit retained the naming rights to Intuit Dome for the LA28 Olympic Games as a founding partner in the financial management software category as organizers continue to sell naming rights for the event’s venues.
• Comcast, Netflix, and Paramount have all submitted bids to acquire part or all of Warner Bros. Discovery, per the WSJ.