Lender presciently cast the iconic doll in its commercial
Having just surpassed the billion-dollar mark in box office receipts this weekend, the Barbie movie has hit upon the cultural zeitgeist - creating nothing short of a bona fide mania. It’s ubiquitous and seemingly omnipresent.
Yet two years before the film’s screening, Rocket Homes and Rocket Mortgage presciently chose the plastic protagonist as the centerpiece for its Super Bowl 2022 ad – a costly consideration given the $6.5 million price tag for each 30-second spot of the coveted airtime.
By all accounts at the mortgage lender, the marketing tactic paid off handsomely. The ad took top honors in the 34th annual USA Today Ad Meter, the ad industry’s leading tool measuring public sentiment and opinion surrounding Super Bowl advertisements. In a study of efficiency, the commercial centered on Barbie’s goal of purchasing her Dream House, with the plot unfolding to show the challenges and ultimate solution toward her achieving homeownership.
Recalling the Super Bowl ad’s impact
In the midst of Barbie mania following the film’s success, Mortgage Professional America reached out to Casey Hurbis, Rocket Mortgage’s chief marketing officer, to gauge his reaction to the resurrected frenzy centered on the iconic character.
“I mean, Barbie mania yeah, but Barbie has been an iconic brand for half a century,” Hurbis said during a telephone interview with Mortgage Professional America in describing how the creative team came to pick the popular doll – with narration by actress Anna Kendrick – to help spread its corporate message. “To see the mania of the movies is exciting and shows the staying power a powerful brand like Barbie has,” he added, noting a 99.9% awareness quotient for the toy.
Unavoidably, Hurbis has been approached by people asking him if he feels some responsibility for having heightened Barbie’s awareness even further since the Super Bowl ad ran, he said.
“Everywhere I’ve been going, everyone has been asking me ‘did you, meaning Rocket, have a part in kicking off that mania?’” Unabashedly, he’s happy to take at least some partial credit for Barbie’s bolstered fame. “Barbie is one of the most iconic brands, and it’s gone from Super Bowl to movie, and we’d like to think we helped Barbie gain even more popularity through the Super Bowl – and you’re seeing that continue with the movie.”
To be sure, the movie’s popularity shows no signs of slowing down. Just three weeks into its run, the blockbuster Barbie movie, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, has tallied $1.03 billion in receipts, according to CNN Business. While surpassing the billion-dollar mark is astounding in itself, early returns yielded something of a harbinger tracking its success. According to Forbes, the movie grossed more than $155 million in the US box office in its opening weekend – including a massive $70.5 million on its opening day.
People are still talking about that Super Bowl ad
Gauging the popularity of Rocket’s Super Bowl ad is a little more complicated than counting dollars and cents in box office receipts, but Hurbis said data points illustrated the commercial’s broad appeal.
“The Rocket Mortgage/Rocket Homes commercial was posted all over YouTube and various places, and you saw renewed interest and people searching Barbie content,” he said. Measuring its full success is further exacerbated as the lender’s rights to the Barbie brand have since lapsed and it’s no longer posted on the Rocket channel. “But there are people who posted it all over and you see a lot of social chatter and brand engagement as well with people recalling the commercial and reclaiming their love for Barbie.”
From a point of film critique, the movie yielded a mixed bag of reactions. Some moviegoers weren’t braced for the existential questions addressed from what amounted to a bunch of inanimate dolls with which many of the very film buffs played during childhood. Elements delving into the politics of gender, relationship dynamics and not-too-subtle assessments of traditional gender roles also yielded bewilderment to those expecting nothing more than an adventure romp a la “Toy Story”. Yet others have embraced that messaging, praising the movie’s approach and humor.
In contrast, the commercial was decidedly more linear in its story-telling approach in portraying the real-life drama of buying a home – a plot conveyed in a fraction of time (0.83%, to be exact) devoted to the movie’s myriad themes.
“We’re excited that, two years later, the same power of our 60-second spot in the Super Bowl continues,” Hurbis said. In a parallel universe while resting comfortably in a home she now owns outright dressed in her hot-pink wardrobe, Barbie would surely agree.
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