Brat or demure? Viral words for viral brands.

For all things, from share price performances to TikTok trends, there is a universal truth: the pendulum swings. After the self-indulgent lunacy of “Brat Summer” in July, August was marked by the counterpointing “demure” trend, with everyone from influencers to brands expounding how they keep things “very cutesy, very mindful”. Got no clue what I’m talking about? Keep reading, I’ll take you through it.

And before you panic about whether this is just a tabloid post, my point here is that brands are no longer setting the trends out there. As this piece will hopefully show you, brands are now reacting to trends rather than driving them. Things have changed.

Choose your fighter

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the truth that social media (TikTok in particular) is the petri-dish from which the world’s trends emerge. Despite being relatively new compared to other platforms, TikTok’s growth has been nothing short of extraordinary, achieving in six short years the kind of reach that Facebook and Instagram only saw after a decade. At present, the app has just over a billion regular users – meaning one in every eight people on earth. That’s not an audience to be sniffed at.

As cost per acquisition rises and consumer attention gets more scattered, brands are facing a real challenge in reaching the right decision-makers. Remember that old marketing adage about consumers needing an average of seven interactions with a brand before a purchase is made? I think we can safely assume that that average has continued to move up with every new social media platform’s introduction.

Millennials, who make up a significant chunk of the TikTok community (60% of the platform’s audience, in fact), are a key group to target. Most millennial TikTok users are now juggling adult responsibilities like household grocery shopping, making them the main decision-makers in many households.

With an estimated $360 billion in global disposable income, Gen Z is another must-win audience. The “born on the internet” generation, Gen Z users are 1.4x more likely to discover new brands and products on TikTok and 1.7x more likely to create tutorials about a product after buying it. This makes TikTok a golden opportunity for brands to tap into Gen Z’s love for discovering, participating, and influencing, driving both product awareness and consideration.

With all these stats considered, it seems like a no-brainer for any brand worth their salt to be chasing TikTok fame – but of course it can’t be that easy. TikTok isn’t your typical social media platform. Its quirky, trend-driven, fast-paced nature means that traditional ads or sponsored content might not cut it. But those who lean into what works on TikTok stand to win eyeballs and brand clout for their efforts.

Consider Unilever as a case study. #CleanTok – the TikTok community for cleaning content – is thriving. With over 97 billion views, it’s become the go-to place for sharing life hacks, learning pro tips, and discovering proven product recommendations. Unilever, whose homecare category tends to make up over half of annual turnover, recognised the potential of this engaged community. Partnering with TikTok, they launched #CleanTok content to make cleaning feel more like entertainment than a chore. And it’s working: 54% of users have purchased a household product after seeing it on the platform.

That’s the kind of ROI that gets marketers salivating, which explains why everyone is trying to get a slice of this pie.

In the blue corner: Charlie XCX

Although it was a thing in the middle of South Africa’s cold season, Brat Summer is an idea that transcends mere weather. It all started with the release of pop singer Charli XCX’s latest album, Brat, which has taken the charts by storm. The album, with its lime green cover and sans serif font – design elements that you’ve no doubt seen everywhere lately and wondered why – is best described as an embrace of a hot-mess aesthetic. It prioritises club culture at its core but still hides introspective lyrics on ageing, womanhood, grief, and anxiety between the beats. Taking its cues from the album, Brat Summer mixes the carefree, grungy, and hedonistic vibes of the 80s and 90s with that millennial and Gen Z edge (and angst). Brat Summer is about knowing that the world is a messed up place and we’re all a little traumatised but we’re doing our best and we’re managing to have fun. As Charli herself puts it, “It’s very honest, it’s very blunt, it’s a little bit volatile… It’s brat, you’re brat, that’s brat.”

Editor’s note: having never even heard of Charli XCX before reading this article, our resident ghost is now feeling old.

Unsurprisingly, Brat Summer became the trend to chase for about eight weeks. Perhaps my favourite moment in this whole crazy ride was when presidential contender Kamala Harris’s PR team decided to “brat-code” her official X account with a neon-green cover image and that unmistakable font. This of course followed on the heels of Charli XCX stating that Kamala Harris “IS brat” – high praise that was no doubt met with cheers of joy by the young left.

But Harris isn’t the only one who got a piece of Brat Summer. AirBaltic acted quickly and went all-in by temporarily rebranding themselves as AirBrat, playing off their already-existing signature lime green look. The move paid off, with over 400,000 views on TikTok. In case this TikTok player confuses you, you have to click the replay button in the bottom left:

In the red corner: Jules Lebron

And just as Brat Summer apparently reached its climax, it was ushered out by a new contender: the word “demure”. It all started with this video by creator Jules Lebron, which went live in the first week of August:

While the jury is still out about what exactly the secret ingredient is that led to its rapid rise in popularity, Jules’ video went viral seemingly overnight. Less than a month later, she’s now made dozens of viral TikToks about being demure – with the most-watched one sitting at a cool 10.7 million views.

Jules talks about being “mindful,” “cutesy,” “sweetsy,” and “considerate,” but her videos are far from serious critiques. Instead, she often makes fun of herself. For example, she once went to work wearing bold green-glitter makeup – not exactly “demure.” In another video, she claims she doesn’t drink or party, only to follow it with footage of herself, clearly tipsy, muttering “very demure” while searching for her hotel room after a wild night in Las Vegas.

Making its way to celebrities’ social media feeds, the trend has since prompted big names and brands to showcase their demureness and hop on the “demure” bandwagon.

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A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo)

And not just celebrities, but politicians as well:

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A post shared by The White House (@whitehouse)

In the stands: all the brands

So, what does it all mean?

For me, the key takeaway is that the days of brands and celebrities being the tastemakers in the world are nearing their end. With so many creators contributing original content to social media platforms like TikTok every day, and each one of their ideas having the potential to go viral any minute, it almost doesn’t make sense for a brand to try to swim against the current of attention. It may well be far easier, and – when done right – far more rewarding to incorporate what’s already trending, instead of trying to set the trend.

Just like Maybelline:

About the author: Dominique Olivier

Dominique Olivier is the founder of human.writer, where she uses her love of storytelling and ideation to help brands solve problems.

She is a weekly columnist in Ghost Mail and collaborates with The Finance Ghost on Ghost Mail Weekender, a Sunday publication designed to help you be more interesting.

Dominique can be reached on LinkedIn here.