Yahoo Finance Barbie is a 'power brand': Mattel CEO
Greta Gerwig's highly anticipated "Barbie" film is hitting the theaters this summer.
The Warner Bros. Pictures film is getting a lot of buzz for bringing the famous Mattel (MAT) doll to life.
Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sat down with Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz at the 26th annual Milken Institute Global Conference to talk about how transformational the "Barbie" movie would be for the toymaker.
Kreiz explained that the movie wasn't created to just sell more toys. The CEO believes "this is about franchise management."
By working with major studios, Kreiz says he's "amplifying the brand" to extend the business beyond selling toys.
See the full interview interview here.
Key Video Highlights:
0:00:11 - 'Barbie' film impact on Mattel
0:01:20 - Building a brand beyond toy making
Video transcript
- Let's get to Barbie. July 21, how big of an event is this for a company like Mattel?
YNON KREIZ: Look, we really believe this will be an event, not just for Mattel, but we believe it will have an impact broader than that. And this is about franchise management. This is not just about one quarter or about one year. This is how you manage a franchise. And this film is really being developed by one of the most creative and prolific filmmaker of our generation, with Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote it with Noah Baumbach. She's directing. We have an incredible cast led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, and other top lead talent.
We're very excited about it. But this is not just about the quarter. And this is the first of an exciting film slate that we're pointing out, as I mentioned before.
- I think this was mentioned on the last earnings call just a couple of days ago. You said this movie was a legacy making moment for Mattel. Explain that to us.
YNON KREIZ: Yeah, this is the first time that Mattel is putting a movie out based on any of our IPs. Any of our franchise. Barbie is really an important brand. It's one of our three power brands. And it will be in many ways a showcase for the quality of the movies that we're looking to make, the type of partnerships we're formulating with lead talent in Hollywood, working with major studios, and of course amplifying the brand in the movie through our own marketing capabilities, and social reach and engagement. So it will be a way for us to show what does it mean when we say that we Mattel is an IP driven high performing toy company, and an opportunity to extend our business outside of everything we do on the toy side of the company.
