OFF THE RECORD

The fourth iteration of A Very Laufey Day – which takes place this weekend – is a very global affair, spanning 25 countries, including Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta, and Manila. Curated by Laufey, Gen Z’s favorite singer-songwriter, it’s a celebration of the arts that encompasses symphony orchestras, ballet, jazz, opera and museums. According to Laufey, the goal is to help younger listeners connect with ‘high culture’, although there are less intimidating entry points like bookstores and coffee shops. She started the fan event in 2023 as a way to inspire Lauvers to get outside by sharing her ideal one-day itinerary, soundtracked by her upcoming second album. It’s expanded every year since.

Laufey isn’t the only artist meeting fans somewhere other than the music. Dua Lipa has a book club. The Weeknd streams video games and champions indie studios. Later this year, Korea’s SM Entertainment will stage a 10k race followed by live performances from idols. Taken together, they reveal new points of connection between artists and fans. For brands trying to reach the same fans, that’s important.

OUR TAKE

A side hustle used to mean a fragrance deal or a co-designed fashion label. Now, what artists do when they’re not making music is becoming more than a support act – it’s a way to build community with fans around interests that extend beyond the music. There’s interest in this type of crossover: a 2026 Eventbrite study found that 69% of 18-to-35s in the US and UK want more events that combine different interests, like crafting and cocktails or culture and movement.

The Weeknd sought out the makers of indie games he loved, spent hours with them talking about design and posted about it. Vietnamese rapper Binz eschewed a traditional listening party and instead celebrated the launch of his debut album with a painting workshop for fans and collaborators. Or consider secondhand fashion marketplace Depop, who partnered with Spotify to give music lovers access to the wardrobes of six up-and-coming artists. That gave fans a way to buy into the  taste or style of an artist, important in an age when subcultures provide fewer ready-made identity codes.

Artists’ community building efforts might not be lucrative, but crossover fandoms can result in surprising benefits. Diplo’s run clubs, which first launched in 2024 (5k, followed by a 90-minute live DJ set), expanded to 10 US locations this year. Despite attracting 10,000 to 15,000 people to each event, profitability isn’t guaranteed – the logistics are expensive. But the run clubs did help the DJ/producer become a global ambassador for Whoop and appear in an ad campaign with Cristiano ­Ronaldo. 

Plenty of brands are chasing the same thing: a loyal community that gathers and stays. It comes more easily to Laufey and co., because the interest is real and not reverse-engineered from a growth target. When BINI’s Aiah hosted the group’s second BINI Run in 2025, she called running her ‘safe space’ and hoped Blooms would feel the same benefits from exercise. That kind of genuine interest is hard for a brand to manufacture, making artists both a useful partner and a potential competitor. So where does that leave a brand that wants in? 

Brands can fund artist-led run clubs and book clubs and there is genuine demand here, with young people seeking in-person events. Thoughtful and relevant sponsorship has a place, and the wellness brands that handed out products at some of Diplo’s events are one example of that. But the community belongs to the artist, so it’s the artist’s crowd that decides if a brand is ‘worth’ letting in. The brands that earn entry will offer something the fandom couldn’t easily access (Laufey gave fans a route into art galleries and symphony halls, for example). Access, a venue, an experience, or a tool: the question isn’t which artist to book, it’s what your brand contributes to the community. 

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A STAR IS BORN

Pop Mart’s latest empire-building chess move is a double-punch opening of a two-story retail store and baked goods space in Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa. Pop Bakery is a casual, more grab-and-go experience, not to be confused with Pop Mart Cafe in Bangkok, and is the first of the sub-line to open outside of China. The character Twinkle Twinkle is the literal star of the show, though other Pop Mart IPs will also feature in the form of food, collectibles, and character meet-and-greets.

Pop Bakery is the latest in a long, ever-morphing line of branded experiences that focus on physical spaces as a channel for brand expansion and consumer loyalty cultivation. The ROI and long-term impact of these activations on brand health and longevity are still under scrutiny. When everyone and anyone is doing it, what makes a branded experience truly additive to the brand and community?

Pop Mart Co-COO and Executive Director Si De has namechecked the Disney playbook for how the company aims to maintain the longevity and value of its IPs via multiple form factors and business lines. Starting with collectible blind box toys, the ‘Disney of China’ has expanded into animation, film, as well as the ultimate Disney stamp of approval – theme parks. 

In Southeast Asia, Pop Mart’s largest region of business after China, the company already launches collaborations at breakneck speed. The region is ground zero for Pop Mart’s retail++ themed experiences after they’ve gone through the testing grounds of China, starting with F&B. 

The accessibility and communal aspect of F&B is the perfect channel for brand extension, also lending well to content creation and shareability. Pop Mart even experimented with dessert trucks in China before deciding on brick-and-mortar. Luxury retail especially is no stranger to F&B, using cafes and restaurants as lifestyle gateways into the brands. Tiffany & Co’s Blue Box Cafe launched this summer in Singapore, and Cafe Carrera serves as Porsche’s watering hole for the community (it’s important to note that this is a stand-alone cafe, and not just a coffee bar in a car showroom). 

Branded experiences are tools in the ongoing attention economy where consumers increasingly demand touchpoints that go beyond digital and into spaces where community and identity are formed. We touch upon this in previous reporting on luxury brands organizing literary salons. All brands want to become a ‘way of life’ for consumers, with experiences as a way to speak to and bolster communities anchored around the brand. Make-up brand Glossier was adept at this, creating a world around its direct-to-consumer community-driven launches, making the ‘Glossier Girl’ into a covetable everyday identity for friend groups. Malaysian coffee brand ZUS Coffee created Drip & Drop block parties as a way to cement association with these daily rituals and community activities.   

We’re not advising that every brand immediately go set up a food truck, and certainly not everyone has deep enough pockets for theme parks. With branded experiences, consistency and thought are especially important – whether a brand is seen as spraying and praying, or is truly invested in building a story and community. Activities should not be done in a vacuum or seen as long-term guaranteed engagement in isolation.

Disney celebrated its Disney100 corporate centennial in 2023, and Mickey Mouse has his 100th birthday in 2028. Pop Mart definitely has its eyes on the prize.

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HEART, SOUL… AND SILLAGE?

Forget Le Labo. The fragrance that’s proving hard to get across China this year belongs to Rafayel. The catch is that Rafayel is not a person. He’s a romance interest in the popular otome game Love and Deepspace. His birthday scent, a marine fougère which is fitting for a character tied to the sea, sold out across licensed platforms within minutes of its March release, with follow-ups for two more characters since.

Rafayel fans are buying a scent and a new way to belong to the Love and Deepspace universe. See also Pop Mart, which rolled its Petals in Four Acts fragrance sprays out across Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand in April, sold (of course) with blind-box mechanics. Street Fighter 6 is also getting room scents built around individual characters.

  OUR TAKE

Scent marketing isn’t new. Subway and Abercrombie have long used smell to pull customers in. Hotels and airlines have filled lobbies and cabins with signature scents for decades (some of them are now available to take home). But as more of the brand experience moves onto a screen, the parts that can’t — the ones that require smell, touch, or physical presence — need to do more work. Scent has a particular staying power. It can’t be experienced through a screen, yet it’s closely linked to emotion and memory.

As shopping moves online, the physical store has become less about the transaction and more about the experience. Brick-and-mortar offers the sensory stimulation and social interaction e-commerce can’t, and shoppers want more of it — 56% of surveyed consumers seek immersive, creatively designed experiences. ION Orchard, which has diffused its own 20-note signature scent for years, has re-positioned as a cultural destination, with SEA’s first Prada Caffè and Tiffany’s first regional Blue Box Café located in the mall. Rolex is staging museum-grade exhibitions of its history while luxury houses across China are turning stores and temporary spaces into galleries.

Scent is also playing a bigger role in how Gen Z constructs and expresses identity, with younger consumers interested in scent stacking, layering multiple scents to suit their mood or the occasion. This doesn’t just apply to women – 75% of Gen Z men say they layer multiple scents. Niche fragrance brands are another way to signal individuality, taste, and membership to a particular in-the-know community. On TikTok, fragrance is something to research, collect, and purchase with knowledge accruing its own cultural capital (see #smellmaxxing or one influencer’s 100 spray rule). The irony that this is all happening via a screen will not be lost on you. 

It makes sense that brands and entertainment properties want to be part of this story. FC Barcelona recently commissioned an olfactory identity: a scent ‘DNA’ developed from the club’s emotional, cultural, and distinctive attributes. Two fragrances have already been released, while an AI perfumer will allow the club to create future collections and personalized versions without losing the underlying Barça codes (for inquiring minds: the two launch scents lean on grass, bergamot, vetiver and sandalwood — a nod to the pitch but not the locker room). And with South Korean startup Deepscent able to turn moods and images into scent on demand, expect olfactory identities to become more adaptable, with custom options for launches or events. 

A scent identity has a similar function to a color palette or a sonic logo because it’s an ownable set of codes a brand can keep building from. But IP fragrances go further. FC Barcelona uses scent to evoke place and memory while Love and Deepspace gets more immersive by using it to make a fictional character feel real. Rafayel’s cologne isn’t marketed as ‘inspired by’, it’s sold as something the character would wear. 

For brands and IP owners, scent is an increasingly important way to reach people who are already spraying and layering fragrance as a form of self-expression. Thinking about how your brand might smell is just the start. What would wearing it allow someone to say about themselves? And who or what would it help them feel part of? 

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ARE WE ALL JUST CREATOR-MAXXING? 

The World Cup has never been more star-studded (covered in a previous Culture Wire), as Capital-F Famous People from across fandoms converge to celebrate one of the biggest global cultural events. So imagine the size of Unilever’s content creator Rolodex as the official personal care brand of this year’s World Cup announced it’s adopting a “Super Bowl every two days” marketing strategy. The brand has partnered with 50,000 creators worldwide across online and offline activations and campaigns, ranging from big-name athletes to micro-creators.

Once viewed as simple amplification channels for whatever direction agencies were hired to push, creators now seem to be center stage, with a seat at the table at the start of a brand’s creative funnel. Is this the dawn of a new era?

  OUR TAKE

Have we really arrived at Creator 2.0? Maybe the more interesting development is not that brands are just talking about creator-maxxing, but that heavy-hitters are investing in and scaling more diverse voices in communities and fundamentally retooling the marketing production process to bring creators to the drawing board. 

Unilever operationalized this with a Cannes Lion stamp of approval in the creative process for the 2025 Bronze Lion-winning Part of the Game with Arsenal Football Club.  The campaign message was completely overhauled based on the input of Arsenal Women’s athlete-creators, which speaks to the trust placed in the creators as the credibility sign-off. Unilever Global CMO Leandro Barreto stated that this new SOP, in which creators are recognized as voices of authenticity, double-team with agencies, and don’t just act as spellcheckers, required a shift in “relationships [and] control”. This might be an understatement, as the company now works with 30x more creators versus just two years ago, with a roster of 300,000 creators.

Brand-building has always meant partnering with different stakeholders: the classic celebrity spokesperson for clout, and a movie tentpole or IP for scale and to get the word out. As the new generation of YouTube talent gains name recognition and starts commanding dollars, these creators are now celebrities to which proximity is coveted (however mundane-seeming).

A big name doesn’t always equate to credibility, though. Celebrities and mega-influencers can be seen as Too Big To Trust. Brands are increasingly engaging with micro-creators and voices in micro-communities to build trust with consumers from the ground up. Nano-creators (1K-10K followers) in APAC are spotlighted for having higher engagement rates across platforms than macro-creators, with trust and authenticity cited as the top reasons consumers engage with creators in the first place. Visa even terms smaller creators as micro-SMBs, a fast-growing category in the USD 135.2B (2023) APAC creator economy. 

Sports brands are especially active in doing so by engaging with amateur and niche sports communities. Nike, in its battle against growth headwinds, is tapping into smaller-scale creators and communities to reposition itself and build influence. In fact, Nike and other previously entrenched multinational brands already face heightened competition in China, where key local brands are seen as more culturally connected and anti-generic. In South Korea, the popular Private Road Running Club positions itself as a community “for not only running but Korean culture across the board”, and brands must engage with it in ways that feel authentic and enrich people’s daily routines. As even these communities become more diverse, there’s growing demand for non-sports and non-performance-based brands to engage with these running groups in accessible ways.

The ways brands and creators work together are ever-evolving and increasingly corporatized, but one thing remains evergreen: how can one stay relevant and build in the culture? One marketing strategy doesn’t guarantee lasting cultural stickiness. Which communities has your brand been engaging with, and how are you crafting the brand story together?

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HEADLINE ACT

Filipino pop is having a festival moment. Weeks after BINI made history as the first Filipino act to perform at Coachella—and drew the kind of online attention that’s usually reserved for much higher-billed acts—SB19 are gearing up to perform at Lollapalooza. Novelty bookings these are not: BINI’s 2026 world tour includes stops in the US, Europe, and Asia, while SB19 reached 1B Spotify streams at the start of the year. 

BINI and SB19 are perhaps the highest-profile examples of a broader shift: across Southeast Asia, local-language artists, homegrown formats, and culturally specific stories are rapidly gaining ground. This isn’t one ‘wave’ replacing another, rather the emergence of multiple local scenes with increasingly engaged audiences. 

While previous SEA exports like NIKI and Rich Brian saw international success singing and rapping in English, these newer acts are finding global audiences while performing in their own languages. There’s still a place for global culture, but SEA consumers are becoming more confident that what’s made close to home belongs on the biggest stages.

OUR TAKE

Interest in local acts is intertwined with the evolution of K-pop. As the genre’s focus has shifted towards global audiences—think English-language releases, multinational line-ups and international training systems—it’s become both a global template and less of a geographically fixed category. But this has also allowed for the idol infrastructure to be adopted and remixed across SEA, as the all-Indonesian girl group NO:NA reveals. Although trained in an idol pipeline, they’re distinctly ‘local’, with gamelan, Balinese cymbals, and music videos set in rice terraces.

Meanwhile, the systems around these emerging local acts are also being built locally, through a mix of government funding, major-label investment, industry bodies, and international competition formats. Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency is in year three of Music Exchange, a program that’s seen 95 artists participate in 64 international festivals. In Vietnam, Sony Music took a 49% stake in YeaH1 Group’s music production unit to build a ‘direct pipeline’ for V-pop to reach international charts. And this November, Bangkok will host the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia .

Of course, consumer interest in local acts predates export programs or investment, but now the scale is almost impossible to ignore. OPM’s share of Spotify’s Philippine daily Top 50 rose from 44% in 2023 to 63% in 2026 (note that we’ve been tracking this since budots crashed brat summer in 2024). Meanwhile in Thailand, daily music charts are a mix of K-pop and T-pop and Thai hip-hop, with Jeff Satur (the second most-streamed Thai act on Spotify globally) touring arenas across Asia and Latin America. Homegrown Malaysian acts like K-Clique are building a dedicated regional fanbase. And while Singapore remains an outlier, with K-pop, Western pop, and Mandopop still dominant, interest in local stories is surfacing in other formats.

Single x 35, a manga set in Singapore, recently went viral with fans praising the depiction of MRT commutes, bidding wars for in-demand apartments (brutal), and career stagnation. It sits alongside other webcomics like Woke Salaryman and Indonesia’s Tahilalats as an example of homegrown IP built on everyday anxieties and humor that—crucially—don’t need to be explained to the audience. Brands are starting to get it, too. Airbnb’s partnership with MILLI turned the Thai rapper into a cultural translator who guides travelers through Bangkok’s creative neighborhoods. Using an artist as an access point into a place and a culture works because MILLI’s credibility with that audience is earned.

For years, the safe bet for brands in SEA was to borrow cultural credibility from global acts. More recently, attention has shifted closer to home, but a partnership with BTS, BLACKPINK, or similar was still a bet on the biggest name in the room. Now, with local talent seeing chart success (at home and abroad), those ‘safe’ choices are starting to look less like the smart ones.

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 BRAND HOST WITH THE MOST

Everyone’s looking for a place to just be, and brands have taken notice. In the past few months, we’ve seen Coach open its first restaurant at Jewel Changi Airport, building on an NYC-inspired bar that had previously opened in Singapore. Porsche is also bringing hospitality to Jewel with a lifestyle-led concept store that includes Café Carrera, developed in partnership with Baker & Cook. Meanwhile, Recess and Aesop just unveiled a bathhouse in Montréal—complete with a communal sauna and hydrotherapy.

This isn’t exactly new territory. Ralph Lauren’s Ralph’s Coffee debuted in New York in 2014, and the first international MUJI cafe opened in Singapore in 2015. But the retail-hospitality crossover is accelerating, with brands betting that time spent is worth more than a transaction.

Is this soft-selling with a cocktail menu? Maybe. But the consumer pull is real: many people are looking for offline, collective experiences that give them a reason to meet others (and, ideally, put their phone away). Younger consumers in particular show interest in ‘shared room’ moments—2025 saw a 25% increase in cinema attendance among US Gen Z, while Gen Alpha increasingly say they prefer the big screen to watching at home .

OUR TAKE

Brands aren’t only competing for consumers’ wallets anymore; they’re competing for consumers’ time. That’s an important distinction; one that explains why the race to build third spaces is heating up. These are environments designed to sit between home and work, places where lingering—and not purchases—is encouraged. The metric that matters isn’t conversion. Instead, brands are measuring dwell time. How long do people stay? Do they come back… and do they bring their friends?

In fact, community is becoming more valuable than conversion. Nearly nine in 10 consumers say being part of a like-minded brand community strengthens their connection more than influencer marketing ever could. The same survey found that almost a third of consumers first discover a brand through community interactions rather than ads or feeds.

We’ve previously discussed how younger consumers in particular are tiring of dopamine-fueled microtrends, algorithmic spectacle, and constant novelty. That same exhaustion is pushing them toward brands that offer something slower: narrative depth and a sense of belonging.

Something else we’re noticing. Third spaces are increasingly being linked to adjacent interests, most notably health and wellbeing. Dior’s growing portfolio of branded spas extends the brand further into daily rituals, while New Balance’s Run Hub—which landed in Malaysia in November—blends retail with a gathering space for runners.

The brands that get this right won’t just earn visits. They’ll become part of how people structure their weeks. But it requires building a space people actually want to return to, not just another backdrop to scrolling.

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 SHOW & SELL

Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market is projected to hit $186 billion by 2025, and the current market leader Shopee just made a play to dominate the field even further.

By being the first brand to join Meta’s newest project, Facebook Affiliate Partnerships, they’re allowing creators to integrate their Shopee products on their Facebook Live, complete with a dashboard to manage everything from product curation to payment. Currently piloting in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, it’s a bet that SEA’s livestream commerce market is just getting started.

OUR TAKE

This partnership arrives amid discussions about the future of the creator economy: can human influencers extend their reach through AI avatars? Can creators license their likeness? Interesting yes, but the more immediate issue for brands is how people actually buy. The online purchase journey isn’t linear anymore, it’s a combination of discovery, emotion, and repeated touchpoints shaped by creators and other customers — from traditional influencers (KOLs) to everyday consumers sharing opinions (KOCs) to the new breed of sellers going live from their bedrooms (KOSs)

Per Shopee data, in 2024, affiliates generated over 100 million pieces of Shopee Live and Shopee Video content (a threefold increase from 2023). Creator content now underpins everyday e-commerce, but it’s not all perceived as equal. In SEA, trust in mega-influencers (creators with 1M+ followers) is declining faster than trust in nano and micro influencers, highlighting the importance of authenticity. In parallel, 79% of SEA social media users are more likely to engage with creator content that ‘feels like a story rather than an ad’, and product links drive 31% of purchases, more than any other format. Taken together, the signal is clear: storytelling-led posts with soft-sell shopping cues from smaller creators are winning.

The Shopee x Meta tie-up will allow more Key Opinion Sellers — who are primarily focused on livestreams and short videos — to join the creator economy, attracted by the chance to boost their income. As they do, the volume of UGC developed by creators for brands will continue to grow, further accelerating the push towards invisible selling. Of course, that’s not just happening on Shopee. It’s also happening on TikTok Shop and Lazada.

For brands, UGC from smaller creators isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s essential. WARC’s Influencer Marketing Benchmark 2025 revealed that creator-led campaigns deliver 3.5x higher engagement rates than traditional paid media across Southeast Asia, while non-professional content investment is set to overtake institutional by 2026.

Consider what’s already happening. In Indonesia, over three-quarters (76%) of consumers buy from creator recommendations, particularly in fashion and beauty. Jakarta’s migration is slowing, partly because people can now earn from anywhere. A bedroom in Bandung is now as valuable as an office in the capital. When it comes to social shopping, the region has gone beyond proof-of-concept and entered the infrastructure-building phase. For local brands, this levels the playing field: you don’t need a marquee budget or celebrity endorsement when thousands of micro-creators can bring your product into daily life. The winners won’t be those who resist this shift toward invisible selling, but those who recognize that in SEA, commerce has always been social — but it’s now more scalable than ever.

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 STAYING ALIVE

“Create epic s–t.” This is Nike’s new battle cry and employee mandate, courtesy of Phil McCartney, the sportswear giant’s new Chief Innovation, Design, and Product Officer.

In the face of revenue decline, share price obliteration, and accusations of an innovation drought, Nike has taken former Adidas partner Ye’s (formerly known as Kanye West) hit song “Stronger” to heart: “Harder, better, faster, stronger.” This includes a C-suite overhaul and internal reshuffling of more than 8,000 employees, product launches brought forward by 12 months, moonshot projects (remember when tech companies did those?), and robotics-forward footwear like Project Amplify.

OUR TAKE

In the attention economy, it’s more complicated than ever for brands to stay relevant and compete for thinning wallets. Nike now has to fend off classic rival Adidas (whose strategy is to be even “more American” than Nike) alongside rising challengers like On and Hoka.

With new product innovation, brands must consider relevance to their target demographics. In the age of woke keyboard warriors and pilates princesses, we’re seeing a strategic shift as brands aim squarely at Gen Z and their robust, multi-hypenate lifestyles. Starbucks, for example, now lets customers add protein to almost any beverage, tapping into health and wellness trends. Gym brand Amino has rebranded itself as a “super-boutique,” combining classes, retail, F&B, and coworking spaces to give Gen Z a new kind of hybrid experience, as every location is now a destination and a lifestyle.

Marketing playbooks continue to evolve as brands turn to culture in search of the consumer sweet spot. Hobbies once seen as niche—like writing and collecting—now command scale and dollars. In China, bubble tea brand Mixue harnessed the power of juicy plotlines by printing fanfiction about its mascot, Snow King, on customer receipts. Other beverage brands are tapping into microdrama tropes like “CEO romances” or inviting fans to write their own endings through social media activations.

Experimentation with IP and collaborations has become a marketing staple, with cross-cultural partnerships helping brands amplify their message and move fast. South Korean entertainment giant HYBE recently partnered with the Los Angeles Football Club (new home of South Korean soccer star Son Heung-min), starting with sponsorship of the Audi 2025 Major League Soccer Cup Playoff and K-pop activations during games.

From sports to arts, brands are also getting their feet wet in controversial cultural moments that shape public opinion. One great example is the Louvre robbery, which dominated the public consciousness—sparking pro-heist sentiment and appreciation for the well-dressed “detectives” on the scene (who, caveat, were probably neither detectives nor AI-generated). The company behind the freight lift allegedly used by the thieves launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign in response, which drew mixed reactions. Netflix subtly joined the conversation, heroing heist-related content and quietly tweaking its algorithm to push anime like Lupin and Detective Conan all over your homepage.

And since everyone now has fine jewelry on their minds, when better for Tiffany & Co. to collaborate with Netflix on Frankenstein? The partnership includes a reskin of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship store and a London exhibit dedicated to the lore and craftsmanship behind both the jewelry and the original novel.

With this growing appetite for cultural experiences, brands are seeking out new touchpoints and moments to connect with shoppers. Whether you’re a legacy brand or new to the game, you need to be firmly embedded in culture to tell your story.

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 LOST IN TRENDJACKING

It’s official: Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of A Showgirl, is breaking records, clocking up more than 1.5 B global streams. Fans have made the album their own, with eldest daughters rewriting the lyrics to Eldest Daughter, the Ophelia dance challenge spreading across TikTok (no surprise that it’s currently one of the most popular tracks on the platform), and fan-produced parties popping up in Manila.

Everything from the announcement to the Target tie-up, time-limited theatrical release, and NYC Spotify pop-up came rendered in the album’s signature orange and was designed to create curiosity and encourage repeat fan participation. Taylor Swift continues to run a marketing masterclass, but there’s still plenty for brands to learn.

OUR TAKE

The truth for most brands that hopped onto the TS trendjacking machine is that, despite breaking streaming records, not everyone is feeling the Showgirl era. The ‘tradwife’ aesthetics—sourdough bread, basketball courts, domestic bliss—haven’t landed well with some US fans. Others have mourned the ‘distinct lack of yearning,’ a big departure from the gut-punch bridges of early Swift. Meanwhile, SEA fans have been Googling lyrical context for some of the more American references (Elizabeth Taylor, redwood trees ).

Something many backlash-focused think-pieces overlook is that this isn’t new. The more aggressive and edgy sound of 2017’s Reputation? That also wasn’t initially well received. But the criticism feels louder this time—partly because Swift is now a star that can alter GDP, partly because online discourse is faster, and everyone is so punk on the internet. Yes, some of the critiques about lyrical quality and multiple album versions feel valid. And yet… the album still dominates.

Anticipating that success, brand responses rolled out ahead of the album artwork reveal. Following Swift’s announcement of The Life of a Showgirl on the New Heights podcast, posts began flooding timelines, with brands leaning into the orange branding or placing products on the forthcoming album cover—all eager to catch the Swift wave. The more creative and authentic posts landed—see Dunkin’s “always been in our orange era” (it is the brand’s signature color) and the playful Life of a Canva Girl meme. KitchenAid’s Tangerine Twinkle mixer was another fun activation. Most others, though, were formulaic and forgettable .

Trendjacking an unreleased album buys entry into the conversation, but it doesn’t give fans a reason to participate—and that’s something they (especially Taylor Nation, a fandom born and trained to decode Easter eggs album after album) are keen to do.

For SEA marketers watching this unfold, the lesson isn’t about avoiding trendjacking altogether—but about not getting lost in it. Cultural proximity without cultural understanding has diminishing returns. Instead of defaulting to reflexive “X era” content, consider what Swift’s fans actually care about, and play within their hotspots. Her SEA fanbase—including the Philippines, her second-biggest market after the US—skews young and female. They’re interested in relationships, beauty, and travel.

Coffee brands shouldn’t stop at Showgirl era latte art, they should, in the same breath, create dedicated spaces for fans to meet and decode the album. Beauty brands could tap into the album’s old Hollywood glamor references, teaching SEA fans about Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic looks. The smartest move might be to wait—not to be late, but to be right. In the case of Swift, her storytelling will always provide the blueprint. It’s up to marketers to actually read it.

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LOW-RISE, HIGH RETURNS

Generating 20 million views in the first three days of launch, Gap’s Better in Denim campaign stars global girl group Katseye. It shows the six members dancing to the 2003 hit Milkshake from Kelis, while showcasing the brand’s low-rise denim (sorry Millennials, Gen Z is loving the low-rise).

On an earnings call, Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson said that early reads on the campaign indicate ‘this is [within] striking range of probably being one of the most iconic brand campaigns that we’ve done’. While the spot isn’t a major departure from previous campaigns (which feature Daft Punk and Juliette Lewis and Madonna and Missy Elliott among others), it’s creating significant cultural buzz around the brand.

OUR TAKE

In the last few weeks, American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney Great Jeans campaign divided audiences, Swatch sparked racism accusations in China and Sanex was banned in the UK for suggesting Black skin is ‘problematic.’ For these brands, any attention is good attention. But Gap’s success shows that genuine cultural relevance can trump controversy.

And cultural relevance is something that Katseye has in abundance. The group – who represent everywhere from the Philippines to Ghana, Venezuela to Korea – embody diversity. Katseye’s Lara (who has Tamil-Sri Lankan heritage) responded to a viral post commenting on the importance and normalization of representation, saying that ‘It’s my #1 MISSION to make sure brown girls growing up and the entire south Asian community feels uplifted and powerful and confident’.

The campaign was always going to appeal to EYEKONs who’ve been invested since Pop Star Academy. But idol endorsement doesn’t automatically ensure a brand will appeal to the fandom. Fans are getting vocal and pushing back against brand partnerships, particularly when brands don’t align with broader values. When BTS’ V revealed he was Coca-Cola Korea’s latest brand ambassador, some highlighted the beverage giant’s inclusion in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions list – a movement calling for the boycott of companies involved in the violation of Palestinian rights. As fandom loyalty evolves to include values-checking, brands must prove they deserve the co-sign.

Finally, there’s the nostalgia factor. We’ve been tracking nostalgia’s resurgence for a while, but as the world becomes more chaotic, the yearning for a simpler time grows more urgent. From the Kelis track to the low-rise jeans and styling, Better in Denim is Y2K coded. But Gap didn’t just throw on rose-tinted glasses – pairing Y2K aesthetics with Katseye, a group that represents the future of global pop, makes ‘now’ feel as good as ‘then’.

Here’s a question for you to ponder: when everyone’s chasing viral controversy, what does genuine cultural relevance look like for your brand?

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!