Column: Barbie girls in a GM world

I’m a Barbie girl in a GM world.

A collection of dozens of Barbies and two Kens were some of the most-loved toys on my shelf. A doctor Barbie, rock star Barbie and even Cleopatra Barbie encouraged me to dream big. And if you were lucky, your Barbies would cruise around in a toy Chevrolet Corvette.

That pink Corvette, along with the GMC Hummer EV pickup and electric Chevy Blazer, made it to the big screen in the Barbie movie ’90s girls like me have been clamoring for.

Moviegoers helped Barbie earn $155 million domestically in its opening weekend, July 21-23, making it the biggest film debut of the year so far. Globally, it earned $337 million.

Cars played essential characters. General Motors’ vehicles got more than 10 minutes of screen time, according to Concave Brand Tracking, which monitors product placement.

The movie was an extended commercial for Mattel, GM and other brands. But it was also a statement about empowerment — powered by vehicles from the only major automaker with a female CEO.

The visibility helps GM play the long game of planting its products in the minds of a captive audience of mostly young women, a demographic with major growth potential for electric vehicle makers, said Bill Daddi, president of DBC Brand Communications.

The key, he said, is adding value to the movie and enhancing the plot rather than disrupting the viewing experience.

In this case, cars were a crucial part of the story, not a distraction. All the Barbies drove through perfect Barbieland in Corvettes shaded in various hues of pink, and when Ken discovered the patriarchy after he crossed into the real world, he chose the Hummer as his ride. A Blazer EV rescuing Barbie easily beat Mattel executives chasing her in gasoline-powered Chevy Tahoes and Suburbans.

The automaker received nearly $8 million in global product placement value from the movie’s opening weekend, Concave said. That means it would cost $8 million in traditional ad dollars to achieve the same level of total exposure.

The first weekend alone made Barbie the seventh best-performing film featuring GM products in the last decade, Concave said, a ranking that will likely climb as more tickets are sold. Transformers: Age of Extinction, released in 2014, was GM’s best integration, featuring six GM brands over 13 minutes of screen time. Age of Extinction grossed $1.1 billion globally.

The most prominent GM placements in Barbie were electric, a nod to the automaker’s goal to electrify its lineup by 2035.

GM and Barbie may seem like an unusual pairing at first, but some of their values are aligned. The automaker’s vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion is rooted in making the world a better place. Of course, that initiative is a business strategy that the company believes will be lucrative. But in recent years, GM has taken a definite stance on real-world issues such as social justice and diversity, equity and inclusion. And for nearly a decade, it has been led by Mary Barra, who has inspired many women in the auto industry. Barra has guided the company through industry tides and is transforming it through the shift to electrification.

In Barbieland, the Barbies wholeheartedly believe they have made the real world a better place by showing through all types of Barbies — lawyer, doctor, scientist, surfer, engineer, teacher — how much women can do. “We fixed everything so all women in the real world are happy and powerful,” said Barbie, played by Margot Robbie.

In Barra’s world, GM conveys a message similar to Barbie’s mantra: Here, women can be successful at anything — even as CEO of the nation’s largest car company.

Being a “Barbie girl in a Barbie world” was a dream when I was young. Today, I’m happy to be in Barra’s.