Project post-mortems: Brat
Discover how Charli XCX's Brat campaign became a cultural phenomenon with strategic project management, bold branding, and creativity. Learn how to blend artistic vision and project management to create unforgettable results.
Whether or not you’re a Charli XCX fan, Brat was a true cultural phenomenon, no question about it. She’s been in public consciousness for years and seen the pop landscape through all its phases since she appeared on the scene in the 2010s, but it seems like Brat was what catapulted her to unprecedented levels of eternal stardom.
Brat dominated newsfeeds, magazine covers, shop windows and political campaigns throughout summer 2024 and became a household brand for everyone from chronically online teenagers to my mum. It was a project every business would be lucky to emulate, and it demonstrates a remarkably strong effort from Charli XCX’s creative team.
So how did they do it?
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Polly is a Marketing Executive at Learning People, bringing extensive expertise in professional training and career development, including in-demand fields like data, tech, cyber security, cloud computing, project management, and business skills.
Playing into the wants of the consumer persona
It’s not enough just to create music for the fans; Charli’s creative team preyed on the general public’s desire to be part of something. There’s a tangible focus, in every part of the campaign, on values such as community and communal exclusivity. There’s also a heavy concentration on memeability and people’s want to create, and that recognition came in the form of campaign features like the Brat generator and the Brat wall. The Brat wall relied on a form of word-of-mouth advertising combined with people’s want to be in an exclusive group; fans would spot different messages on the wall in Greenpoint, New York, and post it to their socials, giving the Brat creative team free advertising.
Not only did this campaign feed into the wants of the consumer persona, it created a whole new niche.
“The whole album campaign is high art. But it is also crucial to understand the benefit of low art and celebrity. The coupling of the two is vital.”
This quote from Charli’s manifesto sets the tone for the entire campaign and encapsulates the culture that was born from it. With incredible execution, the project team managed to actualise the seemingly abstract concept Charli XCX envisioned from the very beginning.
Playing the team to their unique strengths
One of the key principles of being a Project Manager is having the emotional intelligence to look after the team and ensure that they’re playing roles based on their interests and skills. It seems obvious to any onlooker that every stakeholder in the Brat project was making the most of their passion and potential.
The team was given a creative brief that outlined the desired vibe of the campaign with a few specifics around events – “I will throw a rave probably long before the album is out”, “this should be the first thing I announce” – and one huge goal – “you need to understand my vision. This is global … the Angels are ready and waiting. This is the moment”.
Those making the creative decisions simply needed to understand her vision; they needed to be in, or at least get a grasp on, her cultural sphere and that of her fans.
Imogene Strauss, the Creative Director for this project, was dubbed by The Cut as “one of those preternaturally cool city figures whose easy style is inimitable — it’s in her blood. She’d be an ‘It’ girl if she weren’t more comfortable pulling strings behind the scenes.” She was working with Solange when she was just 22 and went on to work with some of the biggest names in the music industry, making her an ideal candidate for understanding Charli’s original vision and bringing it to fruition.
Terrence O’Connor, a close friend of Charli XCX, also played a key role in the photography and brand development of the album. As someone who’s naturally part of that world, he was a perfect fit for the project. In an Instagram post celebrating the success of the project, O’Connor recalled “planning every detail, discussing every moment/sentence/image/video.. ideating, pivoting, changing, and rebuilding. with the best team and best friends”, demonstrating the value of the team actually getting on and getting to know each other, as well as their ability to be adaptable.
Strong brief and brand identity
The brief, snippets of which have been mentioned previously, seems vague and unspecific. However, due to the creative and seemingly intimate nature of the team, this was clearly enough to spark an entire movement. The initial brief outlined a strong concept and went from there. It’s clear from reading her manifesto that this was never just about the music; she wanted to create a brand, as discussed in her interview with Zane Lowe.
“The artwork for Brat will be obnoxious, bold and arrogant” … “There is no explanation for what I do. The answer is always ‘no comment’. We must cultivate desire, chaos and destruction.”
The vision was clear from the start and never digressed. We heard Charli in interviews from the beginning of summer telling us Brat was, and it stayed consistent up until her ‘goodbye forever Brat summer’ tweet. Where other brands fail by going off course with the sentiment behind their identity, Charli’s creative team managed to stay consistent and even double down.
And that’s why we’ll always remember Brat summer.
Adaptability and adherence to tight deadlines
Finally, a key factor that made this album and brand so successful was the team’s ability to react and turn project stages around quickly.
While the buzz was still alive, Charli released remixes throughout the album cycle and released the album Brat and it’s completely different but also still Brat in October 2024. By releasing these remixes quickly and as surprises, the team was able to sustain the Brat momentum for months. In a statement to Billboard, they called this project “a total balancing act of strategy and real-time decisions”, highlighting the critical importance of staying on your toes when you’re trying to maintain brand identity.
If you’re thinking about getting involved in project management but are worried about leaving your artistic inclinations behind, this huge project should serve as an example of why that’s not true. Marry your passions together and get involved in project management in any industry.
