The Backstreet Boys sing the theme for PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie. And I have thoughts. 🦖

I have a 5-year-old boy who is deep in his dinosaur era and loves PAW Patrol (me too… my favorite character is Mayor Goodway’s pet chicken Chickaletta 🐔 of course), so when I heard there was a dino movie coming, I was already excited. Then I found out the Backstreet Boys sang the main song, “Bottle Up,” and my heart smiled.

Just look at this recipe for success:
→ Peak BSB fandom = millennials, mostly older millennials
→ Those millennials now have kids roughly 4 to 16
→ PAW Patrol’s core audience? Around 4 to 7

That’s not a cute coincidence. That’s someone who knows exactly who’s buying the tickets, and who’s sitting in the seat next to the kid. Two audiences, one song. That’s the magic of marketing when it’s done right.

Yes… I was a BSB fan when being a fan was hard. No social media. You waited for the video on MTV at exactly the right moment. You waited by the radio. My friends and I would call each other the second a song came on so we could listen together. You bought the magazine to learn one new detail about your favorite one and built your whole millennial-girl infatuation on it.

I knew every song by heart, even the ones I didn’t really understand (I still don’t fully know what “I Want It That Way” is about, and I’ve made peace with it). But you’d sing your lungs out and feel every bit of the love and the heartbreak.

So now my son asks me to play “that song,” and we sing it together in the car. Full circle. What feels like a million lives ago and right now, at the same time.

That’s what good marketing does. It doesn’t just reach you, it hits the right buttons and surfaces the right feelings.

Whoever pushed for this crossover was absolutely a millennial. Great work. A genuine Thank You!