When Brat is Not Brat

Sure, you can try jumping into a hot summer trend, but will you end up doing more brand damage than good?

The Risks of Pursuing a ‘Fellow Kids’ Strategy

We marketers like to think we’re ahead of the curve, in touch with the youth, hip to memes — but, god, even me writing this makes me feel old.

Many marketers track the latest social media trends and try to shoehorn them into their brand’s ad campaigns, usually with mixed results.

One of this summer’s major trends was “brat.” If you’re not familiar, it comes from an album by a British pop star, and that star defines it as:

The Kamala factor

The trend really lifted off once this star, Charli XCX, posted on social media:

The campaign of Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the forthcoming American elections — they ran with it.

And so did brands.

Brands were all in

Agencies like No Fixed Address and Ogilvy both pitched clients on using it.

The food brand Field Roast which makes bratwurst products bought up billboards in Toronto. The beauty brand Make Up For Ever used it in their ads. Even Lipton, the tea brand, declared its green tea product to be “brat.” (Part of the trend uses a kind of retro green colour.)

But do consumers even care?

But a great thinkpiece published at Digiday this morning questions jumping onto these things too aggressively.

Indeed, the piece quotes the head of social media at Accenture Song as saying:

Trends are getting too fast

The problem, posits the Digiday piece, is that trends are just too fast now — the cycle too compressed. Even just eight short weeks after the debut of the album that sparked Brat, some brands and agencies were calling it old news.

But marketers have FOMO

Still, regardless of the practicality of jumping onboard, marketers do tend to get serious cases of FOMO.

According to a recent survey of 500 brand managers in the U.S. and U.K., nearly all said 20% of their organic social media activity is related to a trend, and 77% planned to increase that proportion over the next year.

How Meta's Great Q2 Affects Advertisers

Every week, we check in with our Meta Ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell. Andrew has visibility into $300 million dollars in Meta ad spend through his Slack community called Foxwell Founders.¹

This week:

Meta reported over $13 billion in Q2 profits

Success attributed to monetization of Reels, increased ad impressions, and ad cost rise

Daily active users increased by 7% year-over-year

Significant ad spend from Chinese advertisers, particularly Temu and Shein

Speculation on Chinese strategic use of Meta ads to disrupt Western markets, force more use of TikTok, and make it harder to ban the app

Be sure to check out Andrew’s Foxwell Founders community of digital ad buyers and his extensive training in the digital ad space.¹

Amazon Blames News for Weak Sales

Amazon is warning that the volatile news cycle will be partly to blame for its lower than expected sales forecast this quarter.

The distraction factor

The company’s CFO told a media briefing this week that high-profile events like the upcoming American elections, and the Olympics occupy people's attention. When major news events happen, such as the recent assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, consumers shift their focus to the news, deferring purchases.

Caution breeds deal-seeking

In addition to the wild news cycle, Amazon is also dealing with a shift in consumer behaviour. The CFO noted that cautious consumers are looking for deals and trading down to lower-priced options.

Amazon said that its lower-priced Everyday Essentials business saw brisk sales.

Q2 sales also missed estimates

Amazon also missed sales estimates in the second quarter of 2024.

Google’s New “Pain in the Ass” Fee for Canada

It’s going to become more expensive to target Canadians with Google Ads come October.

The Canadian government is introducing a Digital Sales Tax on very large platforms. But it’s not just the tax you’ll pay.

Google says it’s going to add an additional 2.5% surcharge on all ads that reach Canadians — a surcharge they say covers the pain-in-the-ass it is to comply with government tax laws. (That wasn’t a verbatim quote.)

So, uh, pour one out for Google?!

The company sent an email this week to some advertisers saying they’ll add the additional fee to “cover part of the costs associated with complying with digital services tax legislation in Canada.”

And, in case you’re wondering, this will apply no matter where the advertising brand is located.

And, just to add insult to injury, that tax to cover the costs of complying with the tax law.. is itself taxable.

Jurisdiction-specific surcharges

This isn’t something new to Google. They call this extra fee a “jurisdiction-specific surcharge” and it’s also charged for Austria, Spain, France, United Kingdom, India, Italy, and a handful of others.

Reddit Acquires ‘Emotion-Reading’ AI Tool

Reddit has acquired Memorable AI, which claims to be able to analyze human reactions and create more effective ads as a result.

How to Get Your LinkedIn Company Page Verified

Your brand page on LinkedIn might become verified soon, and you won’t have to lift a finger for it to happen.

The company recently let regular users verify their accounts by uploading government-issued ID. This gives users a little badge and LinkedIn claims verified users will get an algorithmic boost for their content.

Now, they’re coming out with Company Page verification.

How to get verified

Here’s how to get your brand that badge: Wait.

Because there’s nothing you can do to get it. You just have to wait for LinkedIn to get around to slapping that badge on.

If, that is, your company earned it.

The criteria

LinkedIn says it will only hand out page badges to companies which:

list their location accurately

have a real web site listed

the Page is claimed

there are active admins managing it

it hasn’t run afoul of policies

If that’s all in line, LinkedIn says you’ll get the grey tickmark badge. Maybe.

There are 58 million Company Pages on the platform.

So, it might take a while.

Google to Allow “Downstairs Grooming” (ahem) Ads

Google says it is removing a product category from its naughty list and letting brands that sell that product run ads on their network.

That category: Public hair grooming services.

But not everywhere: Only in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, South Korea, United Kingdom, and United States.

There are still some rules. Your ads:

Can’t even hint at anything sexual

Can’t imply that leaving things untidy is a bad thing

Can’t feature or target minors

This policy change is in effect September 3.

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