Assembly, No Fixed Address and Ogilvy hope so. Those agencies, among others, have been pitching their clients on reactive work relating to Brat Summer, a social media trend sparked by the release of British pop star Charli XCX’s early June album “Brat.”
The work has been tactical, for the most part – involving out-of-home (OOH) placements, organic and limited paid social activity that reference the album’s lyrics and lime green sleeve.
And despite the vague explanation given by Charli XCX herself (“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes”), the trend’s attracted responses from iced tea brewers and sausage companies – revealing marketers’ hunger to join in on niche cultural moments, and the way such moments are sold to them by agencies.
At the beginning of July, plant-based food brand Field Roast, a No Fixed Address client, bought billboard space in downtown Toronto during the city’s Pride parade linking its bratwurst products to the trend Assembly beauty client Make Up For Ever, altered the colors and copy used in its paid social placements to reference the trend. Last week Lipton, a client of social agency Billion Dollar Boy, posted a TikTok claiming its green tea product to be “brat” soundtracked by one of the agency’s staffers singing along to 360, a track from the Brat album. Just this week, Snapchat unveiled a lime green “brat” filter for the platform, referencing the album’s artwork.
Toni Box, evp, brand experience at Assembly, said the agency had received “really positive reactions” from its clientele. “Brands are looking for ways to be culturally relevant,” she said.
Still, as cultural episodes go, Brat Summer might be smaller than it appears. A YouGov survey of 3,200 British consumers conducted July 26th found only 11% were aware and understood the term. Furthermore, the number of brands that have aligned themselves with Brat Summer – which include, after all, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential election campaign – is causing some sector experts to back off.
Accenture Song’s head of social and influencer Melo Meacher-Jones told Digiday that despite pursuing “initial opportunities” relating to Brat Summer, “once we started seeing the rapid commercialization of the trend, we made a conscious decision to pause any further development.”
“We felt that the moment’s authenticity and cultural relevance were diluted by the sheer volume of brands jumping on board,” she added.
And eight weeks on from the record’s debut, the window for opportunistic marketers to jump aboard is closing fast. “The trend cycle is massively compressed,” said Katie Mulligan, strategy director at creative agency Brave Spark.
Production and approval processes within marketing organizations move slower than media cycles, said Mulligan. She estimated that it might take two weeks from an agency initially recognizing an opportunity to creating work, getting it approved and pushing it out on social platforms.
“The smaller brands might be able to react quicker, maybe buy up some really cheap last minute media space… but at an agency with bigger clients, it is hard to be responsive to trends,” she said.
So, why are other agencies continuing to pitch work to their clients based on a cooling, crowded – and potentially overblown – cultural moment?
Well, partly because they believe that joining in the pop culture conversation, regardless of any potential cringe factor, is worth it. “There’s a clear appetite to reach younger audiences within their preferred online spaces,” said Rachel Porter, influence creative strategy director at Ogilvy UK. “The subcultures that initially engaged with the Brat Summer phenomenon – especially across music, dance and the LGBTQ+ community – are far from insignificant.”
Clients had shown “a strong desire to explore how we can together harness these cultural moments to boost brand relevance and engagement,” she added.
Brand responses to trends make up a significant portion of their organic activity on social platforms. According to a survey of 500 brand managers in the U.S. and U.K. by agency Billion Dollar Boy, 97% of social media marketers estimate that 20% of their organic social media activity is related to a trend, while 77% planned to increase that proportion over the next year.
Mulligan said that Brave Spark has steered clear of pitching Brat-related work, primarily because its team deemed the moment inappropriate for the clients on its roster. “It’s about not looking after yourself and having a summer of sex and drugs,” she added, topics that are “toxic and taboo” for many advertisers. When a suitable trend comes along, though, she said the agency’s teams typically write a “proactive brief” to inspire prototype creative assets and outline the opportunity to a client.
Ogilvy’s Porter said the agency had been pitching ideas to clients since the beginning of May, though she declined to name the clients the agency had spoken to. Its pitch relied on the work of the agency’s “dedicated trendspotting team,” which evaluates social media trends based on “target audience overlap, brand alignment and campaign goals,” she added.
“Once we identify a relevant rising trend, we immediately share with our clients, including examples, data, potential brand impact and initial concepts,” Porter added.
At Assembly, Box said that the agency has been shopping around a trend report to its client roster, explaining the trend and identifying how brands might fit into it. “We you customize the recommendations based on what we know about their audience and, of course, what their product and services are. Not every client is going to obviously implement, but it opens the door for us to have a conversation with them,” she said.
How late is too late? Mulligan advised caution from marketers now rushing to join a party that might already be over.
“You’re at the tail end of the trend dying off and that potentially puts your client in danger of seeming behind the times,” she said. Knowing when to call it might depend on your chosen cultural bellwether. Dazed and Pitchfork, for example, have both called the end of the trend, while Ogilvy’s Porter disagrees.
“While having a Brat Summer is in the mainstream now, we will still see exceptional brand content tapping into the trend in coming weeks. This underlying desire for authenticity, individuality and a sense of belonging will remain,” she said.
At Assembly, Box describes the trend as a part of a “movement” that brands can take part in now, and indeed beyond Brat Summer. “We don’t expect the Brat attitude to go away. This is the beginning of a movement… it may not be that we’re calling it ‘Brat,’ we may be for a while, but that attitude is is definitely not a micro trend.”
For Mulligan, a sign that the party was definitely over came from the political world, after supporters of the former British home secretary and candidate for Tory party leader Priti Patel as “the brat candidate.”
“That is the death knell,” said Mulligan.
