no. 9: branding behind brat.
coconut, espresso, brat: read for an explanation.
we’ve seen it everywhere. from kamala harris’ presidential campaign being marketed as charli xcx’s album - brat, to your local coffee shop. the gravitas of the brat summer has redefined the world’s most important political election. it has mobilized gen z like no other branding i have seen in my 24 years of life.
i cannot possibly fathom why charli xcx’s album has become ubiquitous in marketing. my first thoughts were: “it’s just a funny gen z trend”. my initial thoughts have proved completely wrong; it is one of the biggest trends in marketing and culture we’ve seen in 2024.
what i see most from all of this is a massive (!!) opportunity. branding of albums has always been relatively salient to music, but brat proves that you can make music that doesn’t have to appeal to everyone, it just needs to be marketed well. if brat weren’t chartreuse green, would it be as memorable? i would argue it wouldn’t be.
“The directive was: I don’t want this to feel like it has any taste. I want it to feel off-putting and kind of garish," Freaney said. "Everything I started seeing in the city that was green, I started taking a photo of. If it was a sign, a traffic cone, a car, the background of an image in The New York Post." — Charli XCX’s Viral ‘Brat’ Album Cover Took 5 Months to Create, Designer Says
if the word “brat” wasn’t selected and we opted for something more raunchy and rugged as the focus of the album, like b!tch - it wouldn’t be appropriate for corporate brands to utilize it in their marketing.
despite its great branding, the brat album did blow up in part due to luck. coinciding with the harris campaign being announced fueled the fire. the harris hq account is having an absolute field day with the kamala/coconut tree/ brat summer trends, with over 2 million views on their tiktok posts. let’s ignore the opportune timing of the brat album for the purposes of this analysis.
an earlier example of a similar sensation is the “espresso” by sabrina carpenter. it is simply brilliant. the song is catchy, carpenter marketed the hell out of it, and the word “espresso” opens the door to hundreds of corporate marketing partnerships: coffee, desserts, treats, all of it. coffee chains did not take long to capitalize on the hit single. companies like blank street saw an opportunity to market themselves with younger demographics across the world and did so (see below):
van leeuwen even released a limited edition “espresso” pint which rapidly sold out in stores:
all of this to say - artists, branding agencies, and consumer brands - should be paying attention. in the era of incredibly fast-paced content, going viral on tiktok is more critical than ever for brands. not having a marketing team that is able to recognize these opportunities as they are taking off is throwing away dollars. and with that, have a brat summer.
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thanks for reading what’s been on my mind as of late. and a special thank you to delta for giving me no wifi nor operating tv screens so that i could have some time to write this.
to anyone who read this (not you, mom), please let me know your thoughts because i genuinely am curious. xx
📚 what i have been reading lately, linked here for you:
I love your thought that “you can make music that doesn’t have to appeal to everyone, it just needs to be marketed well” bc it’s so true! I love the brat hype but I don’t even like hyperpop in general lol
Your writing is BRAT!
So good!