What Businesses Can Learn From Charli XCX's 'brat green' Color Marketing Strategy 

In a world saturated with other brands and businesses vying for attention every second, standing out can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. But there are tried and true marketing strategies that can anchor your place in people’s minds, and don’t have to cost you a penny. We saw one of those strategies exemplified this summer, by an international pop star who showed how a simple pop of color can make all the difference in the world.

brat Green, A Master Class In Brand Color Marketing Strategy

'brat summer'

“This summer, lime green is not merely a colour; it is a strategic statement, a trendsetter, and a testament to the power of effective marketing.”

— Manisha Mehta, Head of Global PR and Communications at Bynder (Source: Expert explains how Charli XCX’s viral ‘Brat’ trend showcases the impact of effective colour in your branding - July 15, 2024 Retail Times)

Brand color can be a really powerful marketing tool, and British singer Charli XCX managed to create an unforgettable brand identity by leveraging the color theme of her hit album “brat” in her promotion efforts.

And what makes her story noteworthy has to do with how viral the color ‘brat green’ has become in pop culture. It has permeated pop culture to Barbie Pink levels, even extended to a presidential campaign! Consider also how this signature lime or medium green color is not a conventionally popular one, and thanks to her has become fashionable and cool—contrary to traditional uses of the shade. An impressive accomplishment to pull off on a world stage we say!

What color green is the brat album?

The specific shade is #8ACE00 (bratgreen.com) and the newly designated Pantone 14-0340 XCX. You know you've really made it when Pantone designates your primary brand color in their color swatch library.

Its shocking shade and easily replicable format (just a color) has spawned mass virality — with countless articles about marketing experts heralding Charli for her “genius marketing” with brat green.

Inspired by a 1990s neon rave flyer Charli, 31, called brat’s album art color “actually quite disgusting” to Billboard magazine last month. She went on to share that she picked the color because it “spark[s] a really interesting conversation about [desirability]… It had to be really unfriendly and uncool.”

How To Build A Robust Brand Identity

The color-centric marketing of brat offers a roadmap to creating a memorable and impactful brand for all businesses. In this article, we’ll go over how businesses can replicate this colorful strategy using their own brand color(s) to stand out from their competition.

1. Leverage Color Psychology

If Charli was able to make that shade of green cool, you can make your brand color(s) cool too! 

Of the five senses, vision is arguably the one most used by people—and the body of research on how color influences people consciously and unconsciously is extensive. 

Harnessing the subtle impact of color in your marketing and brand image pays in dividends—and the first prize is brand recognition—which the latest research reports color to be able to increase by up to 80% (University of Loyola)! So you can see why big brands pay attention to color so much and how they use their own. Especially in making first impressions—those split seconds when someone first sees an ad or what-have-you, color makes a big difference on a subconscious level.

So get some ideas from a little online research on what emotions and associations people tend to have with your brand color(s). And if your main brand color tends to be seen in a less than desirable way, you have an opportunity to choose a complimentary color or two to create a brand palette to interchange how you use the more severe or less popular color. 

2. Choose The Right Palette 

Having a main brand color is first and foremost in building a robust brand identity, but chosing a supporting brand color or two helps you stand out and resonate with your target market in different contexts. The internet has a plethora of websites to help you mix colors and create palettes with varying degrees of contrasting, based on what’s called the artist’s color wheel. 

There are so many different directions you can go with your brand color palette. Charli’s brand era at the moment is resolutely all about brat green (which happens to be our Geoffresh brand color). 

To use our brand as an example for how to go about chosing supporting brand colors, we chose to black and medium gray to convey our level of experience in our field and to soften the loudness of our shade of green. We also utilize hunter green and white as accent colors sometimes.  

Find out what works for you through experimentation. For example, see how different color palette options would look together in mockup marketing materials. There are infinite color combinations, just be sure to trust your gut.

And make sure to set in stone your brand color RGB and HEX numbers! Those number codes will be your guides in the content you sign-off on. Here’s why consistency in how you use your brand colors is important.

3. Brand Consistency, Consistency, Consistency!

The principal at the heart of Charli XCX's formidable color marketing for her album brat is crafting a visually compelling story with a strong cornerstone: one color. The distinctive green hue ensured that she would stand out in a sea of other musicians and trends too. And consistently embedding such a bold color into every aspect of her marketing has made her album and herself easily recognizable for fans—as well as easy for fans to use in their every day lives. 

If you have brand colors that you've used for many years and still love, make sure to use them consistently and appealingly moving forward, where you have your business name displayed. It's ok to have just one color that you want to be closely identified with—what's important is for it to bring you a sense of pride about your business and what you want to represent to people. 

Don't feel limited by your brand colors however—feel free to play around with how you use them in social media posts, graphics, merchandise, and other marketing materials. But remember how important it is to use that beacon color to be easy to spot and recognize.

4. Show Off A little

Another fun thing about the color marketing strategy is how effortless it is to execute. It’s like picking out your clothes the day before. That is to say that you can go right into chosing how you want to apply those 2 - 5 brand colors, saving you time. 

Simply having those hints of a few colors somewhere in whatever you put out into the world is also doing automatic marketing for you. How easy is that?!

Even paper invoices you send out can be a marketing medium for your business, simply by making sure to have at least your primary brand color stylishly presented on the pages. Branded articles of clothing for yourself and your employees are another example of an offline way to reinforce brand recognition. Like a spiffy zip-up pullover, coffee mug cup, top or hat. Try to have the item in the color shade of your primary brand color depending on your supplier, and with your logo presented in a flattered way and place. You don't have to lose your shirt over “merch"—only invest in something your employees and you would actually want to wear or tot around. Don't fall into the hole of buying frisbees and umbrellas for events either, promise? 

We hope this article will be helpful to you and save you some time as you think about how to better market your business. We’d love to work with you in refreshing how your branding and marketing your business. Contact Geoffresh today to get started. studio album studio album

And Thank You Charli!

Back in 2022 we noticed the Geoffresh green color becoming more employed and trendy in advertising, fashion, and else. Two years on and behold, the popularity of the color has a reached a new level. So thank you Charli XCX for elevating ours and many other business' brand color to such recognition and adoration!