Kendrick Lamar Rejects The Modern Social Playbook

The most challenging social campaigns are products where the platform playbook does not apply. Though a beloved music talent, Kendrick Lamar is not an artist who is highly visible or accessible on social compared to other artists of his generation. For example, @kendricklamar on IG has 13m followers yet just a single post. That level of privacy, since he emerged, has in part been what makes Kendrick a rare and valuable commodity, and contributes to his being seen as so iconic.

“My social media, most of the time, is completely off,” he told The NY Times. And this past week, Kendrick Lamar made a previously unknown personal “burner” account...public. The tactic is an inspiring example for how a campaign can retain the iconic stature of its brand while finding a way to participate in culture. The reveal of @jojoruski is far from any sort of TikTok challenge or social creative best practice, it's an inspiring example of how to approach social beyond the rules of the modern playbook.

Huffington Post once wrote that social media was creating a “homogenized expression of beauty” - essentially a leading beauty aesthetic, being adopted in culture, that comes from what works on social. As marketers become inundated with best practices in social “effectiveness”, content is at risk of the same. The look of social content is becoming so similar, from IG grids to Stories, and TikTok creative, all drawing from the same influencer-y "here's how you do the first 3 seconds" vibe. A catch 22 in many ways: the more we are learning how to be good at social, the less social any of this content actually is.

So, it’s a burst of inspiration when someone or something comes at the medium so differently, reminding us that the genesis of social is to connect with audiences more than simply distract them for the sake of promotion. As one music writer put it, the reveal of @jojoruski grants fans "a new look at Kendrick Lamar's life".