A Fresh Take: Reimagining Charli XCX’s 'BRAT' Campaign in Roblox
Mirroring a real-world method in Roblox could be the move.
Here’s an original guerilla idea I thought about if I was in charge of digital activation in gaming spaces for Charli XCX’s latest album campaign.
Heard quite enough of BRAT? Skip to part 4 for the secret sauce.
Charli XCX’s album ‘BRAT’
Her real life campaign: Bottom-Up
Why Roblox?
How Roblox could have had their own brat summer.
1. Charli XCX’s album - ‘BRAT’
On the 7th of June 2024, Charli XCX’s BRAT was released by Warner Music’s imprint Atlantic. It’s a fierce dive into the chaos and energy of youth, blending pop’s gloss with the raw edge of the underground. Charli takes her sound to new extremes here—unapologetically rebellious, messy but clear…And themed around underwear.
The first track ‘360’ has 150 million plays on Spotify, with the rest of the album tracks averaging 80 million. In 2 months, this is both impressive and clearly impactful.
The latest audience reception could be best captured by the title of this YouTube video. This contains a littany of interviews of Charli XCX being aspirationally relatable.
This album has made such a cultural impact that even news outlets are trying to keep up. Nodding to the Y2K era, this album has created a feeling/aura, or even captured a lifestyle. In particular the term ‘brat summer’ has taken hold, encouraging emulation of the lifestyle of what being a ‘brat’ is all about.
Charli XCX has always been a boundary-pushing pop star. So what made this album stand out?
2. Her real life ‘bottom up’ campaign
Charli’s BRAT is similar but different to her usual works. This album has a strong aesthetic, with a bold green and a typeface that looks like you wrote something on MS Paint that got reformatted incorrectly against your will and now its a bit pixelated. This colour marketing is completely ownable, as the last time a colour was partly associated with a brand was Billie Eilish’s green hair, no other company or person has claimed this colour before (apart from Duolingo, maybe?)
I would describe this campaign as ‘bottom up’. A bottom up campaign is about seeking approval from the fan first and then have the media outlets catch up. I’d say Charli XCX is bottom up because she’s been turning up to every single apperance including small club nights and giving it her 100% energy, building the lifestyle and living the ‘brat’ aesthetic herself. If you head to a club tonight, it won’t be a shock if you see her take over the stage. For reference, I’d say the opposite (or more traditional) approach could be called ‘top down’, where an artist seeks approval from media outlets first, with the prospect of winning fans after.
There are 2 elements of a ‘bottom up’ campaign that I want to focus on:
A huge number of pop-up events - Last minute announcements for pop-up events in underground clubs to unexpected public spaces. Fans had to be in the right place/right time, but Charli has done LOADS of them.
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Documenting the party - providing fans who couldn't attend with a front-row seat to the action. These videos, both from her account and fan-generated content, flooded social media, creating a viral loop that kept the album at the forefront of the cultural conversation.
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This has been one of the most granular marketing campaigns I’ve seen. I have seen a similar strategy before with Fred Again’s success - being documented in cool smaller events that you were ‘too late’ for. Fred again’s presence was relentless because he was playing all of these shows as well as people documenting the shows too. That grass roots campaign very much made him the moment of the post-lockdown house world, and I see the foundations of this reflected in BRAT’s album rollout. I see they are both signed to Atlantic Records too…If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
3. Why Roblox?
Roblox to me is a digital society. Despite being made in 2006, it started its popularity back in 2016, with an average user age range of 9-15. Now that almost 8 years have passed since then, those users are now 17-23. Funnily enough, Roblox confirmed they want to retain this exact user demographic, so making content for this audience is likely to be encouraged by Roblox - so we can assume there is a market here.
“He noted that more than 55 percent of the platform’s users are older than 13, the platform’s “fastest-growing demographic segment” is users between 17 and 24 years old, and that the 17–24 age bracket represents 22 percent of Roblox’s player base. Developers older than 17 make “the majority of our top 1000 experiences,” Baszucki wrote, and “many seek to create experiences for older audiences so they can interact exclusively with those their age.”
So my question back is - if Roblox is a growing reflection of real life culture in a digital world, why would you stop using the same successful marketing strategies that work for this age group outside of Roblox?
On the 17th August, Roblox did do an event with Charli XCX which showcased BRAT themed merchandise on a popular Roblox world called ‘Dress To Impress’ (I’d highly recommend Mat Ombler’s MusicEXP for a deep dive on this partnership + statistics breakdown).
I’d say this partnership was aimed exclusively at a younger female audience, potentially missing opportunities for a broader demographic that would be part of the BRAT fandom on Roblox (there could be more to come though). Also, some may consider this approach ‘top down’ as this experience built no mometum inside the platform itself prior to launch.
Let me pose an alternative idea, one that could use this activation as the end goal rather than the first instance.
4. How Roblox could have had their own brat summer
Let’s keep this simple. If I were part of the Charli XCX team for digital rollout, this is what I would do for Roblox.
My aim would be to enabling anyone to be ‘brat’, and FOMO if they missed it.
Firstly, I’d organise impromptu raves within voice-activated worlds at underground locations.
Okaaayyyy music execs don’t shout at me here, I’m just being creative.
I’d find servers that have elaborate worlds with a decent following, and find specific locations within them. Worlds like Brookhaven RP (over 50 billion visits) and Club Iris (155 million visits) are good selections. Club Iris is pretty self explanatory, but Brookhaven RP is an open world with many buildings. Hosting a house party, or a warehouse takeover won’t be impossible. I’d ask a small fan-community to join this small movement to make some social content.
These two worlds I selected for a specific reason - they both have have public voice chat available. I’d overhaul the audio with Charli XCX during the event, which we have seen done for content in many other games.
I’d then measure attendance and documentation of the event via socials, and bolster this using micro-influencers or fan communities, but they have to stay small. I’d ask them to make videos of their time at the rave and to post videos of them hanging out and having fun on socials. No big names, nothing that looks too professional, everything about the rave needs to look like a bunch of Roblox players have come together to put on a rave themselves.
Progressive event scaling is important. It needs to start small, like a handful of people doing this for fun, and then get progressively bigger. It must stay fan-led and bottom up.
The above could all be done for free, in theory. Bottom up is about getting fan approval first.
However, if we had Roblox budget, I’d enhance this offering by offering digital merch and in-game guerilla marketing.
With budget, it would be possible to officially work with some of the Roblox worlds and also have them play the audio in the specified venues authentically. Being able to officially perform the music inside of the game is the ideal circumstance. Bloxburg (8.8 billion), Robloxian High School (1.3 billion) or slightly-smaller worlds like Club Tesla (8 million visits) and Neon District (15 million visits) that have focuses on music and socialising, with communities already within them, can become available.
With the world owners on board I’d ask for BRAT-themed in-game posters that look fan-made ahead of the event, to point towards a certain time and place (ideally by community members of the Charli XCX Roblox fandom - Worlds like Bloxburg already features community made brat items).
This way we could offer rewards. For the short duration of each event the participants could win some in-world currency, perhaps even a mysterious lime green outfit with a dance emoji to reward the ‘brat’ veterans.
You could also consistently include a mysterious character that always features that looks just like Charli XCX, but you never confirm it’s her. An unofficial stamp of the rave.
Lastly, all this can progress towards an official Roblox performance (like the ‘Dress To Impress’ event I mentioned earlier) that contains a whole album play at a more established venue, an digi-merch store to those who were ‘too late’ and hot-links to Charli XCX’s real life stores & fandoms. Charli XCX doesn’t have to be on Roblox, as this is fan-led and vibe-led. Being able to have genuine audience feedback from the various Charli XCX events will help create an official event/partnership that best services the Roblox players that love Charli XCX.
Next thing you know - you just found out you missed brat summer in Roblox, and it was the best digital summer you never had. You’re welcome.
TLDR
Charli XCX’s album ‘BRAT‘ has a bold & green aesthetic and an attitude summarised by being ‘brat’. Charli XCX’s real life marketing campaign included a bottom up approach by winning fans before media and relentless high energy appearances. Roblox can be used as a marketing strategy by mirroring this strategy - the team could organise pop up raves (aspects scalable by budget) and sharing fan videos on Tiktok, as a way of recognising and communicating with Charli XCX fan’s inside of Roblox organically and spreading ‘brat’-ness. This can lead to a qualitative data-backed official event tailored towards fans, a unique marketing campaign and a potential alternative revenue stream.
