How Charli XCX’s Brat took Over the Summer
Brat Summer is real
If you are a millennial or Gen Z, a parent of one, a music fan, or someone who is just into the current popular zeitgeist, you have almost certainly heard of Charli XCX’s mega-hit album brat. Its chartreuse album cover became instantly iconic, becoming tied to Kamala Harris’ election campaign, and was coopted by several brands. The album became a youth symbol in 2024 and provided chart and viral hits to Charli, an artist who hadn’t had success since her career’s actual start ten years ago. How did brat become such a hit, and what can the business and marketing world learn from it?
To be fair, I think this article might give “b2b (pun intended) lessons from engagement” vibes, but I genuinely feel that marketing and business students can learn so much from what is easily this year’s best marketing campaign. As a result, let’s start with this right now.
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Make a Good Product: This may seem obvious at first, but a good product is the first step to succeeding in any endeavor. Many bigger artists released albums this year, but none of them were as consistent in the quality of songs as brat’s tracks. Obviously, music is subjective, but Brat seems to have garnered praise from everyone: the critics, fans, fellow artists, and me. The brat marketing campaign was great; however, I doubt it would have become a cultural touchstone the way it did had the quality of the album been weak.
Simple Visual Designs are often the most memorable: Part of brat’s appeal is the lime green cover with the simple sans text, which is distinct from every other album cover in the market yet simple enough to be shared and go viral. While the music might be why people stayed, what garnered the attention of many people in the first place was the album cover. This allowed the cover to be meme-d and copied by everyone on this planet, including by Kamala Harris’ election campaign. Speaking of which…
Attaching yourself to something bigger: brat was already a smashing success by late July, having garnered the sort of acclaim and success that made it Charli’s most successful record in years. However, her shout-out to Kamala Harris and Harris’ subsequent adoption of brat as a theme of her campaign was what helped daytime talk show hosts and Gen X-ers discover the album. In a way, the Kamala-Charli crossover was not nearly as weird as it might seem. Charli had a viral album that could grow bigger when attached to arguably the most important event of the year (at least in the Western world), and Kamala was starting up a new campaign and was desperately seeking to regain some youth appeal after President Biden’s declining approval ratings amongst Gen Z. There is a lot of benefits in such mutual symbiosis.
Constantly remix and reinvent your product: brat, despite being an album, is frankly more than just the fifteen songs on the album. Charli followed it up by releasing a bonus version featuring three new songs. Additionally, she has provided remixes for many of brat’s songs, four so far. These remixes served not only as (oftentimes) better versions of the base songs but also made sure brat’s songs stayed within the zeitgeist. brat is still very much an updating and evolving album three months after release. If we merge the last two points, we get…
Collaborate with other talent that fits with your brand identity: Nearly all of Charli’s brat collabs have featured other young and relevant artists. Billie Eilish, Addison Rae, A.G. Cook, and more feature on the remixes; many of them seek to join in on the phenomenon that is brat summer and also, in the process, attach their existing fandoms to the brat brand identity.
Okay, those were some basics; now let’s explore some more mindset-oriented lessons we can learn from the brat.
Build together, don’t tear apart: One of the best songs from brat was “Girl, So Confusing,” a song about Charli being on bad terms with a female pop star she was once friends with. Eventually, this was confirmed to be fellow 2010’s pop icon Lorde. The two artists now collaborated in a remix where Lorde explained her point of view before the two reconciled. Despite this possibly being partially played up for the camera, it is true that Charli and Lorde had not been seen together for quite a while before this song and that they have been seen together quite a lot after the “Girl, So Confusing” remix. This was a genuine and excellent Marketing collaboration. Apparently, Charli suggested “working it out on the remix” after she released brat. It is important to remember that prior to brat, the biggest musical event of the year was former collaborators Kendrick Lamar and Drake going at each other in several diss tracks. Charli’s focus on reconciliation was not only loved by audiences, but it also seems to have brought her back on speaking terms with former friends and musical allies, such as Marina.
Grow big, but don’t forget your core audience: For my first article of The Bhatt Report, I talked about how the YouTube channel Watcher abandoned its core audience, causing the channel’s growth to fizzle out. brat may have been Charli’s big breakthrough, but she didn’t forget her core audience. Since 2016, Charli has been tied to a primarily online genre called hyperpop and its main label, PC Music. While Charli has two albums aimed at larger audiences, Crash and brat, both still had tracks designed specifically for hyperpop audiences in mind and made with her old hyperpop collaborators.
Grow with your team: Even as she has become more famous, Charli has stuck to her producers since 2016, especially A.G. Cook and The Dare (in addition to the late Sophie). Charli picked up her producers back when they were new based on their skills, and she stuck with them even as their careers grew. By this point, they are a reputed team of electronic legends. Rather than trying to change her sound or switch up her team as mainstream success seemed close, she chose to stick with her original team, and you can hear their synergy. Particularly between Charli and A.G.
Take your moment to shine: Everything had to go right for Charli to have so much success with brat. Her appearance in the Barbie soundtrack, the mild hit of Crash, the fact she was just outside the mainstream but had a dedicated fanbase. She took these opportunities, and made what could likely be a career-defining moment out of them. This is a reminder, take your opportunities and do your best with them.
Also, enjoy hearing good pop albums.