I was at karaoke last Thursday when someone requested "360" by Charli XCX and the entire bar lost its collective mind. Not because it's objectively the best song ever written, but because Charli did something that most brand strategists spend their entire careers trying to do: she made a color mean something.
If you've somehow avoided the internet for the past month, let me catch you up. Charli XCX released an album called brat, slapped it in a specific shade of slime green with blurry lowercase type, and declared it a summer. Not her summer. The summer. And the internet said: yes, absolutely, this is now canon.
Here's what fascinates me from a strategy perspective. Charli didn't ask permission. She didn't focus-group the aesthetic. She didn't release a 47-slide brand guidelines deck. She dropped the album, posted "brat summer" on social, and let the culture run with it.
Within weeks, brat green was everywhere. Brands were shifting their social palettes. Politicians were co-opting the aesthetic. Your aunt was posting about whether she was "brat or demure" without fully understanding either concept.
The strategic insight here is deceptively simple: specificity creates shareability.
Charli gave people something concrete to latch onto. Not a vague vibe. Not a mood board. A color. A word. A posture. She created what I call a "tribal shorthand," a single visual or verbal cue that immediately signals belonging. You either get it or you don't, and that exclusivity is the engine.
Compare this to every brand that launches a summer campaign with "vibrant energy" and "bold colors" and "living your best life." Those campaigns cost millions. They move nothing. Because they're trying to be universal when culture rewards the specific.
The other genius move? Charli positioned brat as the anti-aesthetic aesthetic. Messy. Unpolished. A little chaotic. In a landscape where clean girl and quiet luxury dominated for two years, she found the white space. She zagged so hard it became the only zig that mattered.
For brand strategists, the lesson isn't "make everything green and lowercase." Please don't do that. The lesson is threefold:
For brand strategists, the lesson isn't "make everything green and lowercase." Please don't do that.
First, own a symbol. The strongest brands don't describe themselves. They show you one thing and let you fill in the rest. Tiffany blue. Hermès orange. Brat green.
Second, create tension with the current moment. Brat works because it's the exact opposite of what preceded it. Your brand positioning should be a response to the cultural landscape, not an echo of it.
Third, let go. Charli didn't try to control every meme, every interpretation, every use of the aesthetic. She seeded it and released it. The best brand moments happen when you trust your audience to be co-creators, not just consumers.
I think about this a lot when I'm working with clients who want to "own" a cultural moment. You can't own a moment. You can only start one and hope it has enough escape velocity to take off without you.
Brat summer will end. The green will fade. But the playbook is permanent. Be specific. Be oppositional. Be generous with your IP. And for the love of god, stop trying to make "vibrant energy" happen.
It's not going to happen.