How Charli XCX's brat Raises The Bar For Color Centric Campaigns

We talked last week about the hyperactive digital landscape of so called “aesthetics”, an observation around how audiences create and connect through the lens of trending aesthetics on platforms. Speaking of, this past week Charli XCX declared “Kamala Harris IS brat”. A deeper dive into Charli XCX’s "brat" album campaign is a timely case study around the potential of aesthetics in marketing, which thanks to brat's success have proven to be so much more than just a campaign color. The brat campaign has become a social season, style and mood, and yes with all of the perks of social content that utilizes an easily identifiable color. 

In many ways, Charli XCX has never fit the mold of a traditional pop star. And as a point of relatability, her latest album campaign concept around “brat” invites audiences to also reposition their alleged imperfections into superpowers, to push on their own standards of perfection. You can even feel it in that the color itself intentionally gives you a bit of slimy ick – that’s the point. It’s a push back on the relentless polished perfection we’re so used to seeing in social feeds. While this whole brat moment started as just album art, here is a breakdown of how the music campaign has raised the bar for color-centric campaigns, becoming a source of style influence, a seasonal mood, all while retaining relevance to a core product through the use of an own-able color:

More Than A Color, It's A Social Palette
The art director behind the brat rollout, Brent David Freaney, said “If you’re able to create a world around color and use that repetition, through artwork or merch or costumes, it all just reinforces the same thing.” Not unlike Hulu’s green or say Ice Spice’s orange hair, the brat campaign’s slime green offers a source of creative territory for the audience to repurpose - all while driving attribution even among the internet's shortest of attention spans.

A Refreshing Social Ideal
A celebration of authenticity, or as Charli explains it, “You’re that girl who feels herself but maybe has a breakdown…but parties through it, is very honest, is very blunt, a little bit volatile.”

A Style Mood & Social Season
Yes, last summer was undeniably Barbie pink, but the slime green all over your feeds this summer is significantly more of a style brief around an attitude. It's an extension of Y2K style trends evolved with, as Charli again puts it: “It can go quite luxury or it can also be so trash - just like a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top with no bra."