Atlantic Records: Charli xcx Brat wall
CLIENT
Atlantic Records (c/o Charli XCX)
MARKET
NEW YORK CITY
WALLS
1
Does the Brat Wall need an introduction?
If you’re online, in Brooklyn, into music, a fan of pop culture (or friends with anyone who is), chances are you’re well acquainted with this now legendary muraling moment.
The year is 2024. The star is Charli XCX. The wall is Colossal. The vision is epic. The initial idea, to debut her new album with a hand-painted backdrop and live performance activation from the icon herself, was major enough. With a mysterious livestream of our team at work coating the wall in green, she summoned the legions of Angels (fans) to online speculation and onsite investigation. When the crowd reached a critical mass, she graced the scene with her heavenly presence, performing new music and punctuating a moment in pop culture history.
But the Brat Wall was only just beginning its reign that would dominate the summer.
the brat wall is born
6AM — PAINTING & LIVESTREAM
Curiosity online and onsite builds with each passing hour
6:45PM — THE TEASE
Charli XCX posts a time and location, fans flood the scene
7:15PM – THE PERFORMANCE
Fans are rewarded with a surprise performance and DJ set from the queen herself in front of the Brat Wall, including the live release of the next single off the upcoming album.
BRAT SUMMER BEGINS
The Brat Wall marked the beginning of what will go down in history as Brat Summer (students and music lovers, take note). The first brushstroke of green had fans in a frenzy, speculating what it all might mean in a flurry of social posts across all forums.
Her iconic performance to follow electrified the scene and drew an adoring audience like moths to a lime green flame. The Brat Wall backdrop since became a beloved monument to this moment in culture.
After the event, she posted the first Brat Wall TikTok post, scoring:
12M+ VIEWS
100K+ LIKES
700+ COMMENTS
3.2K+ SAVES
Atlantic Records posted an Instagram reel of the pop-up gaining:
31K+ VIEWS
Colossal produced a recap of the livestream, garnering:
13.7K+ IG VIEWS
15K+ TIK TOK VIEWS
HAND PAINT, REMIXED
Charli XCX wrote “BRAT WALL 4EVER,” and she meant it. Following the viral response to the first coat of paint, Atlantic Records and the popstar herself chose to extend the media run and evolve the creative several times. They built their album marketing plan around the mural from May through July of 2024, keeping all eyes on the wall. Several more Brat Walls popped up in major cities during this time, while the Brooklyn Brat remained the epicenter of all the album action. We provided fresh paint for three further livestreams and 7 total creative changes, which is how Charli chose to communicate directly with her Angels.
May 9, 2024
legacy is undebated
Atlantic Records + Charli XCX updated the Brat Wall to read the lyric “i’m your fav reference,” raising the Brat Summer temperature to a fever pitch over her new single “360”
May 14, 2024
Lookin’ like an icon
Atlantic Records + Charli XCX show the west coast some love and San Francisco gets its own Brat Wall
June 5, 2024
I’m your number one
We returned to the Brat Wall to repaint it as the album cover the day before its release. Atlantic Records + Charli XCX live-streamed our team at work to build audience anticipation. When Colossal finished painting, her team posted a photo of the updated Brat Wall online before the full album dropped at midnight.
June 9, 2024
guess
Another creative change debuted news of the extended Brat release: “brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not”. Once again, Atlantic Records + Charli XCX live-streamed the paint swap and posted the finished mural to social before the surprise deluxe drop.
June 20, 2024
I Ride for you, charli
Since Brat’s release, fans speculated that the song “girl, so confusing” referenced Charli’s decade-long relationship with Lorde. In another hand-painted stunt, Charli chose to tease the song’s remix on the Brat Wall, morphing its current text to read “l o r d e” before she rewarded fans with a remix. “girl, so confusing version with lorde” immediately became a viral sensation and one of the top songs off the record.
July 1 & 2, 2024
Brat wall 4ever
Charli bid fans farewell with a final creative change on the Brat Wall (live-streamed in progress, of course). Though the mural read “ok, bye !”, its indelible legacy lives on. The next day, we restored the wall to its original solid green shade.
i’m your favourite reference
Just as Charli planned, fan reactions exploded online. Fan engagement is always climbing so we stopped counting when the Brat Wall reached more than 13M+ people on social media worldwide.
CULT CLASSIC
The Brat Wall’s many creative changes and multiple live-streams left a lasting impression for fans new and old. The first surprise performance brought Charli closer than ever to her crowd (evoking her early shows as a rising artist), simultaneously reinforcing her popstar influence while reminding fans “inside the icon/there's still a young girl from Essex.”
The mural became a meeting place for fans to feel closer to Charli and discover updates on the album release.
From May through July, Charli kept the culture in a chokehold. With everyone waiting to see what the diva would do next, her accounts alone saw 19.6M+ impressions.
4.4M+ VIEWS on Twitter
14.7M+ VIEWS on TikTok
535K+ LIKES on Instagram
monument to the moment
The Brat Wall is now immortalized on Google Maps — a monument for Angels to visit for years to come.
THE PRESS
A frenzy of major outlets added over 300 million impressions and painted the Brat Wall phenomenon in a new light as the mural location became a marketing masterpiece.
“There is a live stream for “the brat wall” and after the album was released, it was changed to a white background and announced the deluxe version of the album, ‘Brat and It’s the Same, But There’s Three More Songs, So It’s Not,’ only three days after the initial release.”
“For Charli, a huge part of the brat marketing campaign has been
‘creating moments that are physical and feel sacred and special, creating moments that you just simply HAD to be at.’ Her intent with the wall was to cause a massive scene by offering a space ‘where me and my fans could come together as one without the barriers or stiffness of normal fan events.’ As she further explains in an email, ‘I think in-person spaces are really important right now. They strangely feel more human than ever before—probably because we’re all living our lives mostly online.’”
“ What troubled me the most ... was realizing that after a decade-plus of covering pop culture, this was the first time a viral trend had actually taken root in my brain.”
“Pop-up events in NYC and London were also key in making this moment feel particularly larger than life; her surprise set at Lot Radio drew a massive crowd as it previewed some of the coming music.”
“Each time the wall was updated and live-streamed, stan Twitter went into a state of pandemonium trying to anticipate Charli’s next move. Although Brat cover-meme-making sites popped up and her particular shade of lime green was virally omnipresent, its physical likeness somehow seemed even more powerful. Fans trekked en masse to take photos and watch its updates.”
“It’s only been a month since Charli XCX released her newest album, but we can say with authority that we’ve officially entered Brat girl summer. Everyone we know is working it out on the remix, mourning the end of the Brat wall in Brooklyn, and unearthing vintage Von Dutch. So it was only a matter of time before brands hopped on the Brat bandwagon.”
“Charli teased the incoming remix of her song “Girl, So Confusing” via TikTok live stream with the same mural painting technique she used to announce the deluxe issue of “Brat.” Without much context, the wall simply displayed Lorde’s name, and Charli followed-up by dropping a short clip of the collaboration on her private Instagram account. The single will be released Thursday at midnight.”
“Fast forward to Thursday when Charli started teasing the collaboration on the famed ‘brat wall’ in Brooklyn, where Lorde’s name appeared in those signature sans-serif lowercase letters. Then, at midnight, the remix dropped.”
“The release of the deluxe version of BRAT did not come without fanfare. Leading up to the release of the original album, lime-green BRAT walls began popping up in several cities worldwide, with the “Talk talk” singer making appearances at these walls occasionally. The day before the deluxe album was released, Charli XCX went on TikTok Live to record a new wall being erected. With its white background, the new wall mimics the cover of Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not.”
“Brat’s ongoing rollout has been a masterclass in campaign world-building that we would all do well to learn from.”
“...Charli XCX and her team’s guerrilla approach to promotion
has propelled the Brat summer trend. A wall in New York’s
Greenpoint neighbourhood that was painted Brat green and
used for simple messages and announcements about the album
launch has become an internet phenomenon.”
