Unhinged Socials

Jul 25, 2024

Brands are ditching their polished veneer, for bold, unfiltered, and sometimes outrageous brand personas on social media. From Wendy’s Twitter roasting its own followers to the Duolingo owl dancing to Dua Lipa on an office table - these brands are throwing themselves into their new ‘unhinged’ strategies. Essentially, social media has flipped the script on how brands connect with their audiences.

So why does this work?

  1. AUTHENTICITY: People are tired of polished, perfect content. They’re craving authenticity and genuine connection in the social media they consume and the brands they support. Traditional marketing approaches stand out as insincere or out of touch. Unhinged socials tap into the trends, language and humour native to these platforms, and help brands seem more approachable and genuine.
  2. HUMOUR: Audiences are increasingly spending their time online in search of entertainment, and humour is now the best way to draw engagement from younger viewers, as audiences go in search of content that will distract them from the constant churn of negative headlines and stress-inducing crises. Hence, after decades of decline, humour is finally making a comeback in advertising.
  3. ENGAGEMENT: The digital landscape is increasingly saturated with content, making it hard to stand out from the crowd. Edgy or ‘unhinged’ content can help brands cut through the noise and draw more engagement. The only problem - if everyone is making unhinged content, is it still unique?

Duolingo

Duolingo’s TikTok account is unhinged, topical and bitingly sarcastic in its customer responses. Their take-no-prisoners approach to media has made Duo (their bright green owl mascot) a star. For Duolingo, nothing is off the table - don’t be too precious about your brand.

RSPB

RSPB’s Bird of the Week series on TikTok is a fever dream of content; combining memes, education and… birds. Their meme choices are topical (and possibly have a short shelf-life), but impactful and engaging to an audience of internet natives. They're tapping into the Venus flytrap strategy: draw attention with humour, then point eyeballs at educational content.

The Labour Party

This General Election, Labour took to TikTok to engage their voters - through meme wars. And while their TikToks saw high engagement, a quick look in the comment section shows that younger audiences are getting increasingly cynical about brands engaging in this kind of content, particularly when it comes to something as important as a General Election. When you’re tapping into unhinged socials, make sure it feels authentic to your brand, as well as the topics you’re discussing.

So What?

This trend ties into the Navigating Uncertainty trend for 2024 - how do you distract your audience from the polycrisis raging all around them? Unhinged socials are all about building authentic brand communities through humour, nostalgia, and pressing the metaphorical f***-it button.

Be human. Don’t take your brand too seriously. Embrace the chaos. The world is bleak enough.