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This summer, pop girls returned to the main stage.
It follows last year’s ‘big pop’ moment, says Kirsty Hathaway, executive creative director at creative agency Joan London. “Last summer was predicted to be an economic nightmare. But along came Taylor [Swift], Beyoncé and Barbie,” she says. “Not only did these women create communities, they poured more than $1 billion back into the global economy and prospered brands and businesses around the world.”
Now, a new class of pop darlings, from Chappell Roan to Sabrina Carpenter, offer a fresh approach to pop stardom. Gone are the days of polished, untouchable pop stars. Today’s pop girlies are offering relatability, authenticity and connection. “We haven’t just been graced with fresh musical talent, but a host of intelligent individuals, remaining true to their authentic selves and showing brands how business can really be done,” Hathaway says.
It’s a welcome evolution, says Rachel Lee, global insights strategist at London-based agency The Digital Fairy. “The key thing about this summer’s rising collective of pop girls is that they all capture the idea of femininity and girlhood in such widely diverse ways that don’t cancel each other out,” she says. “After the all-encompassing pinkness of Barbie last summer, people are craving culture that perhaps feels a bit more nuanced.”
These stars have dedicated — and specific — fan bases. “Pop girl summer has become this year’s biggest marketing moment and shows just how hungry brands are to tap into niche cultural trends,” says Melissa Chapman, CEO of social publisher Jungle Creations.
Another common thread among 2024’s pop stars is that they’re unabashedly singing about their sexuality, says Alexis Kwan, creative strategist at youth culture agency Archrival. “Chappell is creating pop anthems about the female orgasm in ‘Red Wine Supernova’, and asking the audience to ‘call her hot not pretty’. Charli and Billie [Eilish] are singing and dancing on a mountain of panties. Tyla is asking for someone to ‘make her water’ and acknowledging her own beauty,” she says. “Although female artists have done this before, this trend deeply resonates with Gen Zs, who are reclaiming their sexuality, not for the male gaze but for other women.”
This year’s pop megastars have a firm grasp on what their audience wants. What lessons from 2024’s pop girl summer can brands carry through to (demure) autumn?
Charli XCX’s Brat summer takeover
June marked the start of Brat summer when Charli XCX’s album came out. It quickly turned into a cultural moment as brands jumped on, offering up their own Brat summer shopping edits and churning out Brat-themed social content.
But now, two months post-release, for every brand milking their lime-green products and doubling down on said content, there’s an online commentator declaring Brat summer “over”. With brands from Kate Spade to Target releasing ‘Brat summer’ shopping edits, consumers are growing weary. But Brat summer is by no means dead in the water — just look at Tuesday’s Charli XCX x Skims campaign, and all the Brat summer headlines that followed. Though searches for “Brat” dipped after 23 July, they’ve been on the rise again since 15 August, per Google Trends.
The lesson: Brands should keep an eye on pop stars like XCX — they’re the ones with the star power to ignite (and sustain) a longer-lasting cultural phenomenon like Brat. “Although we’re in a time where trend cycles move fast, there’s so much value to creating a lasting brand platform that has various levers that can be dialled up and amplified throughout key moments, all laddering up to the same core concept,” Kwan says.
But there can be too much of a good thing. Brat summer has broad appeal, but it only hits the mark if a brand’s ethos aligns with Brat summer’s messy hedonism. “There is a risk that any trend will be saturated by creators and commercialised through the sheer volume of brands that get involved, making campaigns less interesting and harder to cut through,” Chapman says. Brands need to pick their moments.
Chappell Roan’s accidental Harris campaign link-up
When the Harris-Walz campaign released a camo hat earlier this month, online commentators were quick to draw comparisons to Roan’s similar merch. Shortly before the drop — and right after Tim Walz was announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate — a meme of Walz’s photoshopped head on Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess album cover made the rounds online. Roan responded: “Is this real.”
On 7 August (the same day the hat dropped and went viral), searches for “Chappell Roan merch” peaked, according to Google Trends data. The dual attention to both the campaign merch and Roan’s own signals the power of these stars’ dedicated fan bases — the hat went viral, in part, because Roan’s fans recognised the nod. It also brought more eyeballs to the artist.
The lesson: Brands would do well to look not just to the stars, but to their merch. Of course, blatantly copying a design is a non-starter. Instead, it requires collaboration. “For many brands, especially heritage brands, who face the problem of wanting to lure in younger demographics while not alienating their core audience, there’s something to be said for finding creative routes to double appeal,” says Louise Yems, strategy director at The Digital Fairy.
Sabrina Carpenter’s early hits Erewhon smoothie
Two of the major brands to tap Carpenter in the lead-up to summer were Skims (in April) and Marc Jacobs (in May). Both are notorious for their cultural savvy and having their fingers on the pulse. (Case in point: Skims’s embrace of the WNBA during this summer’s sports-mania and Marc Jacobs’s viral Nara Smith spoof-turned-campaign.)
In August, Carpenter cemented her It-girl status with one of the label’s true markers: an Erewhon smoothie. Joining the ranks of Olivia Rodrigo, Hailey Bieber and Sofia Richie Grainge, Carpenter’s $23 ‘Short N Sweet’ smoothie debuted, a portion of the proceeds for which go to The Jed Foundation for mental health.
The lesson: Get in early. These brands hopped onto Carpenter (as well as a slew of other stars) early in her rise, capitalising on the buzz before their competitors. Plus, they know their demographic — which is where the smoothie comes in. Some questioned what young Carpenter fan is buying a $23 smoothie. Though judging by the plethora of TikToks by young girls who did just that, it’s clear that Carpenter’s team have a solid understanding of what works: her Gen Z fans want everyday luxury, which may well be by way of an Erewhon smoothie.
Tinashe’s comeback
TikTok just crowned Tinashe’s ‘Nasty’ the song of the summer in the UK, after it was used in more than 10 million videos worldwide (number two globally on TikTok). ‘Nasty’ didn’t top the music charts (spot 61 on Billboard), but no matter — the song’s internet success by way of TikTok clips and meme-ifications catapulted the pop star back into the limelight, right in time for the release of her new album Quantum Baby.
Urban Outfitters and Pinterest tapped in, featuring the star in UO’s back to school campaign ‘Shift Happens’, alongside 10 other creators and influencers. The premise of the campaign was to lean into authenticity and community; it picked influencers “known for their own distinct communities and aesthetics”, according to the release.
The lesson: TikTok remains a solid indicator of where young consumers’ attention is focused. Brands can’t rely on traditional metrics to judge who to align with — instead, they need to go to the spaces where their consumers are spending time, from TikTok to Pinterest. It’s here that they’ll find the people their consumers want to see and engage with.
Addison Rae’s Petra Collins ‘I’m Sorry’ collection
Earlier this month, Rae debuted her single ‘Diet Pepsi’, accompanied by a Vogue article declaring ‘Addisoncore’ a cultural moment. This wasn’t out of left field: Rae’s been planting seeds all summer long. In the lead up to the release, she featured on an XCX ‘Von Dutch’ remix (and made an appearance at XCX’s New York Boiler Room set), and starred in the latest campaign for Petra Collins’s Ssense-exclusive brand I’m Sorry. The consensus was that Rae was the perfect candidate for the campaign. Collins told Ssense: “She really is this collection.” Last week, Rae starred on the cover of Perfect magazine, decked out in new season Coach — a Gen Z favourite going through a cool-girl revival.
It all culminates in Rae’s ‘Addisoncore’ aesthetic: very Tumblr (Collins’s own work made the rounds on the blogging site in its heyday); soft focus and soft colours; all-American but not in a cliché way. As Collins put it: “She’s silly, fun, and sexy.”
The lesson: There’s value in finding stars with an ultra-specific, strong aesthetic and vibe. Brands can tap into and help them to build on this — Rae embodies Collins’s I’m Sorry brand, and the campaign of Rae in the clothes helped the star to cultivate her pop girl persona. The same goes for the bag charm-heavy Coach items in the Perfect spread. Brands that also sit in Rae’s “chill girl energy” camp (her words) can emulate this.
Instagram content
Tyla’s time-travelling Met Gala dress
Though the Met technically takes place in spring, Tyla’s viral Balmain dress deserves an honourable mention nonetheless; her impact has continued well into summer 2024. This year, she shared a green carpet with the likes of Zendaya and Jennifer Lopez, but it was a video of the ‘Water’ and ‘Jump’ singer that raked in the top view count on Vogue’s socials. In July, she performed at Vogue’s Prelude party in a Louis Vuitton jersey before the Paris Olympics kicked off.
The lesson: Viral moments can still hit. The key is that they’re multi-layered. “From an initial view, it’s simply an entertaining clip that encapsulates the spectacle of the Met Gala in general,” Yems says. “But if you want to go in on the lore, you can. The meaning behind the look, the origin of the sand — the iceberg goes deep.” Brands can play into these layers.
The bottom line
These megastars are bringing authenticity back — and brands should take note.
In step with Vogue Business’s 2024 influencer marketing predictions, consumers want authentic content from brands. This includes the people and influencers driving that content. Celebrities are the original influencers, and the shift away from polished pop girls to stars that people can relate to on some level brings forth a new class of talent for brands to tap. But only if it aligns with their aesthetic and ethos. While last summer, every brand hopped on the Eras and Renaissance tour bandwagons, 2024’s new class of pop requires more nuance and selectivity.
“What the brands are missing that the pop stars do have is intriguing lore, a ‘leader’ full of personality and a skill for irreverence,” says Jordan Mulvaney, creative digital strategist at The Digital Fairy, noting that this cohort of pop royalty shares in their ability to not take themselves too seriously, while taking their art very seriously. “It is difficult for a brand to replicate people’s relationships with female pop stars, while both are selling you a product, a brand needs to do more to avoid feeling corporate and faceless.” This is where the pop girls come into their own.
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