Marketing Hotline: Living that brat life

Charli XCX has successfully pulled off the boldest career renaissance in recent memory, taking her decade-long singing career to new heights.

It’s the stuff of dreams for marketers:

1. Taking a somewhat ‘cult’ artist - because let’s be real, Charli to date has mostly been known as a featured artist rather than an independent musician - into the mainstream through the power of memes.

2. Creating a consistent and recognisable campaign with lo-fi branding and just a girl, her acid green, and a dream. Plus, the iconic brat meme generator.

3. Making brat summer go on and on by repurposing content into new albums with extra tracks, co-headlining a tour with Troye Sivan to ensure packed out venues, and a full remix album including Billie Eilish’s first feature.

Naturally, savvy social media managers across the globe have been doing their best to jump on the trend. But brat is so much more than that. It’s transcended the meme sphere into a way of life, the hygge of Gen Z, if you will.

Don’t believe me? Well, the usage of the word has increased to such an extent that it was chosen as Collins Word of the Year 2024. Now, here’s why that’s important. Because language is a living, breathing creature, and that means words are constantly taking on new meaning, depending on the context they’re used in.

Brat has come to be used as a way of describing a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude. You don’t need to be turning your social banners acid green and churning out clever brat-related puns to be trendy. Bringing brat to your brand is about being bold in your approach.

For the inaugural Marketing Hotline, we’ll be delving into brands with big brat energy, and exploring how that translates into a winning marketing strategy.

First up, there’s a new unhinged TikTok channel in town and it’s being spear-headed by birds. If I had a nickel for every time I saw a TikTok channel taken over by an unhinged bird, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

Recently hailed at The Drum Awards for Social, RSPB have had a major overhaul this year, taking an innovative new route with not-for-profit marketing by going completely feral on TikTok.

Protecting and restoring habitats, saving species, and protecting wildlife is all very worthy, but it ain’t sexy. RSPB had an image problem. According to consumer insight, younger generations - also known as future supporters - were completely unengaged. They were either perceived as old-fashioned and stuffy, or simply not perceived at all.

What’s a bird charity to do? Building awareness was a top priority and TikTok is where Gen Z and Gen Alpha are spending a healthy chunk of time. But it’s not enough to set up your account and start churning out the same old, same old or desperately hopping on the latest trend. You need to embrace the zeitgeist and find your own niche to occupy. Enter, Bird of the Week.

A simple idea, executed to perfection. It’s brilliant for four reasons:

1. It’s a regular content moment that will bring people back for more every week

2. It’s relatively simple to pull off for RSPB. No need for new footage or a ‘face’, just plunder your internal Sharepoint and repurpose content you already own.

3. It’s educational but really, really fun. And most importantly…

4. It puts your main purpose at the heart of your flagship content.

Bird of the Week shines a spotlight on a different type each week, as you’d expect. Browsing through the playlist, it all feels fairly effortless.

The devil, my friends, is in the detail. A deliberate gameshow-esque format with a retro opening title and a spinny wheel to pick your bird. The fever dream music. The recurring eagles. These little touches are what make marketing magic, signposting the content their audiences want in-feed. They’re also building a community around Bird of the Week, using comment replies to answer questions, making in-jokes that their fans can relate to and refer back to each week, taking polls on which bird people want to see next, and keeping the tone light, playful and genuinely funny. Best of all, you might actually learn something.

A little chaos goes a long way in persuading more nervous stakeholders to be a little more brat. Successfully launching Bird of the Week has paved the way for bolder content, such as this tongue-in-cheek censoring of an iconic Chappell Roan moment: I’m gonna serve exactly what you are, C-AAAAAW! (Mum, don’t slap me, I didn’t say it).

Forgive me for having birds on the brain, but I also love this pop culture moment perfectly captured by National Trust. H.O.O.T.

Of course, credit where credit is due, Duolingo must be acknowledged as the original unhinged TikTok brand. Striking fear in the hearts of all failed language learners (guilty) with mildly threatening green owls. Very brat.

Simply put, we could all benefit from putting our hesitations aside and taking a risk with our campaigns. When it comes to social media, consumers are here for a good time, not a long time.

Until next time,