Brat summer? Here’s a silly little Pub Pro Playlist Poem

By Alastair Kirk

What happens when Brat Summer meets silly season in a B2B marketing office? We make a Brat Summer acrostic poem marketing playlist of course, plucked from some of the biggest and brightest albums of this year. (With some conjunction support by rogue tracks as this was actually really difficult).

We’ve also outlined some of the clever marketing and branding going on behind the biggest hits – so read on for that.

You can listen to the full playlist here:

B2b

Starting strong with an aptly-titled track from the most acclaimed (and culturally significant) album of 2024 – Brat by Charli XCX – B2b doesn’t quite share the same meaning as the campaigns we work on. But it makes for great SEO for us. The Brat campaign has dominated the second quarter of this year, with a simple black font on bright green background making more impact than other much bigger budget campaigns. ‘Brat summer’, an ‘arguably more feral hot girl summer’ (as described by Head of Copy Nic Jones), has even made its way into US politics, which is kind of equal parts iconic and jarring.

Birds of a Feather

After surprise-dropping her most critically lauded album to date, Billie Eilish got even more experimental with a sound she had originally curated from her childhood bedroom with her older brother. At such a young age (Billie is only 22!!!!), the singer has already won two Best Original Song Oscars, a heap of Grammys and is responsible for the presence of ASMR-singing in the mainstream. Simple, effective and understated branding – hats off to Billie.

true story

Aside from maybe Taylor Swift (who’s kind of in her own league for romantic speculation in the media), few popstars’ personal lives have been the subject of such intense scrutiny as Ariana Grande. Her album eternal sunshine reimagines the 2004 Jim Carrey—Kate Winslet film of the same name (it’s just missing the ‘of the spotless mind’ bit), cleverly leading listeners through the process of a relationship breakdown and healing. Branding-wise, it does the job for repairing Ariana’s fractured public image after being the centre of a romantic ‘scandal’ on the set of upcoming movie Wicked.

HOT TO GO!

TikTok dances and Coachella sets aside, Chappell Roan has risen as the most surprise breakout star of 2024. Fortunately, she had a whole album’s worth of bangers ready to enjoy when the spotlight suddenly struck. Lyrically, the infectious HOT TO GO! is somewhere between The Macarena and an early Arctic Monkeys song, although ‘no one’s touched me there in a damn hot minute’ could even be a compelling CTA on a brave brand’s LinkedIn ad.