Barbenheimer Your Business

A strong brand voice is a great way to connect with your clients. But the recent Barbenheimer phenomenon shows what can happen when two powerful brand voices come together. And it offers lessons for every business about partnerships.

“Barbenheimer” started over a year ago as a tweet by entertainment writer Matt Neglia in response to a glut of news about the films Barbie and Oppenheimer. These films were set to hit theaters on the same day - there’s even a rumor that Warner Brothers purposely set Barbie’s release date to coincide with Oppenheimer as revenge on its director, Christopher Nolan, who had switched his distributor from Warner to Universal. 

The ridiculousness of Barbenheimer made it go viral, with the meme-sters of social media creating slick movie posters combining the film’s casts, printing t-shirts with pink nuclear clouds, and making movie trailer mashups.

Barbenheimer may seem far removed from your business (unless you run a movie studio, in which case, hi, would you be interested in my screenplay?), but there are a few important takeaways here for us all.

Partner with people who complement you

Barbie and Oppenheimer are very different films. In terms of brand voice archetypes, Barbie combines the Innocent, Jester, and Rebel for some over-the-top subversive fun, and Oppenheimer melds the Ruler, Sage, and Creator for some epic grim drama. Barbenheimer splits the difference, becoming an epic mashup of Jester, Creator, and Rebel with a random sprinkling of a few other archetypes. 

We partner with businesses whose brand voice isn’t like ours all the time.  And every time one of us brings the other in on a project, we become more than the sum of our parts. We combine the best of our approaches and we’re each more appealing because of that connection. This is something you can also take advantage of.

Bring in a new audience with the right partner

Because of Barbenheimer, people who were eager to see Barbie since its first, ridiculous, wildly entertaining trailer decided they also needed to see Oppenheimer. And those who eagerly anticipated the latest film from Christopher Nolan suddenly decided they also needed to see the latest film from Greta Gerwig. Each film lifted the other up and exceeded projected ticket sales. It was a big win for the film industry that proved the public will come back to the theater for more than Marvel sequels.

Partnerships can bring in a new audience that you might never have reached otherwise. We’ve gotten clients because a referral partner promoted us to their audience - often without our asking. This type of organic promotion is pure gold and we’ve reached new markets because of it.

The Right Partnership at the Right Time is Magical

Barbenheimer is a rare but beautiful thing - organic, crowd-sourced branding. The timing was perfect - people responded in part because it tapped into people’s eagerness for a return to the magic and fun of theatrical films as cultural events. You can’t guarantee two voices will harmonize in a way that entices the masses, but it’s powerful when it happens. It’s what the business-school folks like to call synergy, although I think at this point pretty much everyone hates that word. 

So forget synergy. Connect with great partners and you might just Barbenheimer your business. And if you don’t have the strong voice you need for great harmonizing, contact us.