In my house, there’s no shortage of Barbies. As a dad of three girls, it’s hard to escape the gravitational pull of the iconic doll. And, with the release of “Barbie,” director Greta Gerwig’s live action film, it seems like this timeless brand is on everyone’s mind.  

As a marketer, the Barbie universe is interesting for several reasons. Mattel has managed to amass a billion-dollar brand that has inspired children for more than 60 years—an incredible feat. But Barbie also serves as an interesting allegory to how brands see their consumers.   

Barbie is complex. One minute she’s an equestrian and the next she is a movie star, and she is always on the cutting edge of what is cool. Her motto is “you can be anything you want to be,” and I can’t think of anyone who takes that more literally than she does. But at her core, she’s always Barbie.  

Consumers, too, are complex. One day you’re a college student, then you’re a waiter, then you’re a computer programmer. You go from buying cheap jeans and music festival tickets to khakis and baby diapers. If a brand doesn’t know how to accurately connect your online and offline behaviors, purchases, preferences, devices and life journey, they might see you as several people.   

Brands need to see people for who they are. Barbie is a scientist and a fashionista and a pastry chef. They also need to know more than that, like that Barbie checks the news on her iPhone in the morning but shops online on her laptop at night. She’s probably looking for replacement shoes.  

When brands don’t know who their customers are, or understand their behaviors and preferences, they risk missing important opportunities to speak in ways that resonate.  

To get there—to understand and act on all the different sides of a person—brands need to bring them all together in one clean, unified view. They can do that with what we call identity resolution.   

Barbie or Barbara: The importance of identity 

Brands often have limited knowledge about their customers, things like email addresses or names, for example. Even brands with a cache of first-party data often have data blind spots caused by inaccurate identity, limited customer attributes and inconsistent customer experiences, to name a few.   

Identity resolution can fill in those gaps. Historically, marketers have relied on email addresses or matching customer identifiers that can be easily linked, like seeing Barbie use barbie@barbie.com and barbie@gmail.com, for example. Both are broken approaches. Emails are not people.   

Identity resolution goes a step further: It uses multiple data sources to create a consistent view of a person online and offline in a privacy-safe way, like knowing Barbie sometimes goes by Barbara, that she shops online and in-store and that she uses several different devices. This keeps profiles fresh and persistent, cleans up duplicate records and matches online and offline transactions to real individuals.   

For example, we all know Barbie loves a pink Corvette. If I’m the car dealership where she purchased that ride, I might think that’s all she’s interested in. But she is safari Barbie now, and she needs a pink Jeep Wrangler.   

Strong identity resolution allows the dealership to see an accurate depiction of Barbie where she is right now. She’s browsing for pink Panama hats, she’s looking up flights to Tanzania and she just bought a fancy new camera. These signals can inform the dealership about future purchases Barbie might want to make, like a new vehicle to go with her new vibe.  

Turn your customer data into a dreamhouse  

There is so much valuable data at a brand’s fingertips. When it gets fragmented and disjointed, marketers lose sight of Barbie’s needs and wants. They unintentionally deliver a disorganized and frustrating customer experience. Brands should think of their customers like kids think of Barbie: someone who wears many outfits and who is constantly changing.   

And they can go beyond speaking to customers they already know. Identity resolution coupled with a digital advertising solution can help you talk to your most loyal customers, discover new ones and drive brand interest through meaningful conversations across all channels. That means they can also speak to the Kens and Skippers of the world and get to know their hopes and dream(houses).  

Like Barbie, we are all dynamic people. We may not be astronauts one day and deep-sea divers the next, but as the world changes, so do we. Brands often miss knowing all sides of their loyal customers and capturing the attention of those who might want what they’re selling. The right partner helps brands see those complexities, allowing the Barbies (and Kens) of the world to accessorize for any occasion.