How Real Housewives Became Hollywood’s Secret Movie-Marketing Weapon

The film industry looks to Bravoholics to save cinema. Photo: Ser Baffo/NBCUniversal

This article was originally published on July 24. We are recirculating it now timed to Barbie’s streaming debut on Max. Be sure to also read Alison Willmore’s review of the film, our profile of the woman who rescued it from development hell, and our salute to the film’s unsung hero.

Inside a cavernous Southern California soundstage on an apocalypse-hot day, Garcelle Beauvais is playing life-size Barbie. A suite of digital video cameras track the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member as she saunters into what one person on set describes as “Barbie’s dream closet�: a klieg-lit wardrobe wonderland decorated in hues of fuchsia, flamingo, and Pepto Bismol, chock-a-block with high heels, handbags, costume jewelry, and pair after pair of aggressively fashion-forward sunglasses encased in a shrine-like vitrine. Shot from a top-down POV, the three-season Bravolebrity lays on her back to rollick atop a pink shag carpet amid piles of similarly bubblegum-colored Barbie finery, tossing clothing and garish boas into the air in a paroxysm of glee.

A certain ineluctable logic governs this collision of worlds: television’s foremost fantasia of Birkin bags, spa days, private-jet travel, and real-life Malibu beach houses infiltrating the most plastic realm there is. The “activation� — part of a multipronged promotional blitz that is currently playing out across TV, streaming, and social media — intends to promulgate word-of-mouth buzz for Warner Bros.’ $145 million Barbie movie adaptation. But more than that, Beauvais’s turn in the pink spotlight stands as evidence of the Real Housewives franchise’s newfound status as Hollywood’s go-to movie-marketing weapon.

“It’s mind-blowing that I am at a place now where my brand can help a brand as big as Mattel and Barbie,� Beauvais, post-rollick, explains. “TV shows are now helping movies. We’ve come to a place where it’s almost like reality stars are the moment. That’s carrying over to the movies and trying to get people in the seats.�

“You’re in their home,� Beauvais says of her fans. “They feel like they know you. And if you see these people all the time, that’s who you connect with.� Photo: Ser Baffo/NBCUniversal

Not just any people. Activations like these are targeted at Bravoholics, a furious fandom of meme-pumping, podcasting, group-chatting, TikToking individuals who unleash torrents of updates, hot takes, and (sometimes unfounded) rumors about any and all Housewives–related behavior. According to data from Bravo’s parent company NBC Universal’s Insights and Research team, postings by Bravolebrities of the Housewives ilk are 88 percent more likely than the average television personality to be shared or followed across social media.

“When we produce custom content with our Bravo talent for movie studios across the industry, it drives between a 25 and 67 percent stronger likelihood to search for the film,� says Jamie Cutburth, executive vice president of creative partnerships for NBC Uni’s advertising and partnerships group. “So we know these spots don’t just have people enjoying them. It inspires them to take action, which takes them one step further to purchasing a ticket.�

Since a 2015 Housewives–promoted initiative for Fifty Shades of Grey (featuring Lisa Vanderpump and Kyle Richards of RHOBH on a sofa trading innuendos about BDSM), Bravo has collaborated with major movie studios on 98 branded activations. Among them, a promo showcasing Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member Meredith Marks — who has publicly championed the “major mental-health epidemic� she feels is plaguing young adults in America — discussing mental health issues surrounding the 2021 movie-musical Dear Evan Hansen with her son Brooks. One for 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok intersplicing Real Housewives of New Jersey stars with scenes of the Hulk and Thor in a gladiator-esque battle. (“Oh, I get it — they’re having a reunion!� Dolores Catania exclaims.) And in support of Disney’s 2018 kids-lit adaptation A Wrinkle in Time, another promo spotlights Bravolebrity capo di tutti capi Andy Cohen adjudicating a kind of suburban war of words between Housewives all-stars Melissa Gorga, Erika Jayne, Cynthia Bailey, Gizelle Bryant, and Kenya Moore.

More recently, a paid activation for director Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling surfaced on the Instagram account of RHOBH cast member Crystal Kung Minkoff last September, crystallizing the fizzy efficacy of these collaborations. It features Minkoff and fellow Housewives Dorit Kemsley and Sutton Stracke raving about the embattled sci-fi drama. “You guys, can we please talk about this film?� Kemsley trills over post-movie cocktails, prompting Stracke to breathlessly exclaim: “Oh my gosh, I loved it!� After some discussion of the performances by DWD stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles (Minkoff: “He is a superstar�), the Housewives turn their attention to the movie’s fictional, Stepford-like community of Victory, teeing up a cue card for the spoof spinoff series The Real Housewives of Victory.

In 2023 alone, Bravo has contributed to the Barbie blitz — with ads appearing on Bravo and NBC Uni’s Peacock streaming service on top of Beauvais’s Instagram feed (1.3 million followers), TikTok (61,200 followers) and Twitter account (326,400 followers) — as well as Lionsgate’s promotion of the coming-of-age drama Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Disney’s live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid. To hear it from Cutburth, who declined to divulge how much these activations cost, none of these collaborations arrived at by chance. Bravo executives brainstorm spots for studio movies — sometimes as soon as projects are announced in the industry trades, preemptively pitching promos long before films appear on the release corridor — then work tirelessly to craft content with the production value and look of Housewives programming.

“What’s special about the Housewives franchise in particular is that it has such an incredibly leaned-in audience,� explains Dana Nussbaum, the Warner Bros. movie group’s executive vice president of media who has overseen several Bravo–branded movie promos over the years including the Barbie and Don’t Worry Darling activations. “Because it’s a reality show, people feel they have been given this very personal and intimate access to cast members’ lives. It’s a different relationship than you have with a traditional celebrity … They become, for a lot of people, really trusted resources.�

Hence, the magical thinking that resulted in Beauvais beaming into a Barbie wardrobe to don “Mars Explorer Barbie� garb (while glancing down at her chest to drolly observe: “The girls won’t do well in zero gravity�). “Every fan’s dream closet is a Housewives closet,� Sharon Ngoi, NBC Universal’s vice president of creative partnerships, tells me back on the activation’s SoCal set. “But what is a Housewives’ dream closet? A Barbie closet.�

In her dressing room, Beauvais prepares to slip into a pair of yellow in-line skates, matching canary-yellow elbow and knee pads, and a pink-and-blue bathing-suit-biker-shorts-visor combo to embody “Rollerblade Barbie.� “The power of TV is huge because people see you every day,� Beauvais tells me. “You’re in their home. They feel like they know you. And if you see these people all the time, that’s who you connect with.�

Breaking into a giant Cheshire cat grin, she adds: “I can get you to go out and watch Barbie!�