Kamala Harris IS Brat

How One Campaign Dominated Headlines, Hashtags, and Homes in Summer 2024

This Kamala Harris campaign took off over the summer quickly after Joe Biden had dropped out of the race for the 2024 United States election. This campaign ran throughout the summer and had been kicked off by a comment made by Charli XCX as a response to Harris’ joining of the race. The post on social media platform X had read ‘Kamala is Brat’. The Harris campaign team had responded to this by using the post to create a campaign targeted towards young voters. The post ‘Kamala is Brat’ would become the campaigns title. This was followed by a series of social media display changes as well as posts/ videos created around the idea. This campaign became a smash hit over the summer, grasping the attention of young voters across the country. It also sparked discussion in the political space due to its nature of not being the type of campaigns candidates usually run. This marketing campaign will be analyzed to understand who exactly was involved in the campaign, why it reached young voters so effectively, and how it sparked important discussion in the political space.

Who was Involved in the Campaign?

Kamala Harris, at this time the current vice president of the United States, had the public eye turn to her after rumors that Joe Biden was going to drop the race. The public was unsure whether or not she would become the star candidate for the democratic party. There were many other popular options compared to her, leading to heavy speculation about who President Biden would choose to endorse. This debate would soon end after she was almost immediately endorsed by President Biden following his announcement of dropping out of the 2024 presidential election (Guardian Staff, 2024). This action made her the immediate runner-up to Bidens position for the Democratic party. She was essentially thrusted into the space with haste.

As Harris and her team settled into the race, they were left to pick up the slack from Biden’s campaign. Young voters for multiple election cycles now have always typically fallen more toward the democratic side. Though a shift in this audience had occurred over the summer of 2024. According to an article from the New Yorker, “registered voters in that age group were identifying more with the G.O.P. (Grand Old Party) – and by a double-digit margin” (Kim, 2024). This shift had raised a great amount of concern with the Democratic party. This left a large question to her and the Campaign team as they prepared their next move- How could they effectively regain the vote of young audiences?

This leads us to the other main individual of the campaign, Charli XCX. The singer/songwriter had recently released her new album ‘Brat’ in early June. She had been riding

off the success of the album as well. Multiple ‘brat’ related trends had started to arise shortly after the album’s release. A statement from an article on Today describes this as, “an aesthetic trend defined by party animal antics, cool-girl style, and lime green everything” (Caldwell, 2024). This type of

trend resonated highly with audiences that fall within the Gen Z bracket. The ‘Brat Summer’ phenomenon had truly taken over the United States in terms of pop culture. This was further driven by other artists interacting with th e trend like Sabrina Carpenter, Lorde, Troye Sivan, and many more. It was truly something special as this trend connected so many during the summer months.

These two events intersected at around the same time they were at their height. The Harris campaign had kicked off strong as the Democratic campaign had become reinvigorated from the change in nominations. The Brat campaign had also been in full swing. When the tweet had been posted, the rest was history.

How Were Younger Voters Swayed by This?

The Harris Campaign had used various tactics to sell the ‘brat’ effect of the campaign towards young voters. Looking at this campaign in the perspective of PESO, its many different ways of marketing can be analyzed. Paid media was not realty a part of this campaign in this aspect as it had more to do with the other three. Earned media is the largest aspect of this campaign with outlets all over the country making commentary on the event. Shared media was also large with this campaign as it was widely shared across various social media platforms. Owned media was also heavily used as the Harris campaigns social media platforms were drastically changed for the moment as well.

Paid Media

This aspect of the campaign was not really used. This campaign was essentially a moment that happened within marketing that the Harris campaign was able to latch onto. This means that everything was created through their own assets, meaning they did not pay for anything when creating this small campaign.

Earned Media

This is what I would consider to be the largest aspect of the PESO model for the Harris campaign. Because of the unusual route that this campaign took marketing wise, it was heavily covered in the media. People were excited to see the switch up in nomination within the Democratic party. An excerpt from an article under the New Yorker states, “It was very difficult the past few months, prior to Biden’s announcement,” she said. “Our students were chasing down voters. Now voters are chasing organizers down, trying to get involved” (Kim, 2024). Due to this excitement, media outlets all over the country were talking about this shift within the party. This especially got younger audiences reinvigorated to see a younger, more able candidate enter the race.

Shared Media

Shared media was a core part of the distribution of this campaign and how that was handled. Young voters were shocked about this rather odd turn taken by the Harris administration. Seeing such a high stakes idea like picking the next president had become less stressful when it became connected to the idea of ‘Brat Summer’. In the words of Charli herself from an Article on CNN says, “that girl who is a little messy, and likes to party, and like maybe says some, like, dumb things sometimes... is very honest, is very blunt, a little bit volatile... that’s brat” (Foreman, 2024). This type of aesthetic is not usually seen with the clean, professional look of presidential nominations. This is what made Harris’ campaign so relatable and therefore so sharable amongst these audiences. This type of relatability was carried into many other campaign videos she made as well. This method proved to be extremely successful. An article from BBC states, “Of the more than 300 videos the Biden-Harris campaign has put out on TikTok, the three videos released since Mr Biden stepped aside have amassed 20% of the likes on the entire page, according to Ms Henry.” (Faguy, 2024). Content created by the Harris HQ had become highly sharable amongst younger audiences. This sent a shockwave out to audiences of younger voters, reinvigorating the Democratic party.

Owned Media

In terms of owned media, the Harris campaign had taken on the full identity of brat summer on. Their social media pages. Shortly after the tweet was made by Charli XCX the Harris team had changed the look of the campaign’s social media identity. Suddenly the profile pictures as well as the banners had changed to ‘Brat’ green. The pages had started to embed visuals that were similar to the album. Posts were created in the form of ‘memes’ to exemplify the connection between Harris and the popular trend.

To conclude this section, the Harris HQ had heavily utilized various aspects of the PESO method to boost this moment with the popular singer. They had expanded a small tweet into a strong, effective campaign that got young voters across the country paying attention. Harris had found a way to become more relatable to these crowds with pop culture moments like ‘brat summer’ to boost her ratings in the poles. The entire campaign is extremely impressive for this.

Was This Successful in my Eyes?

Personally, I found this campaign to be extremely effective at the time. Young audiences were excited to see a new candidate enter the space. The Harris campaign had utilized this excitement to their full potential when tackling their marketing on social media. By using popular pop culture at the time, they were able to grasp the attention of so many young voters at the time. People started to become so engaged with the election after this campaign ran. Voters in this age group were interested to see how someone relatable like Kamala would fair in the election.

If I were to suggest one alteration to this campaign it would’ve been to utilize better tactics to keep newly engaged audience members around. While Harris had a strong start to the campaign with moments like Brat, it seemed that many started to lose interest in her position towards the campaign. This article from the San Antonio Report states that, “Kids have a little bit different attention spans. It’s just how we’ve grown up. Especially with TikTok. Everything’s very fast paced, and so presenting information in that way —social media is a great way to do that because it is quicker,” Chalmers said. “And the challenge with that is ‘how do you get so much into so little?” (Salazar, 2024). With attention spans seeming to shrink as we march more and more into the future, new challenges arise. I think the Harris campaign did a really good job at trying to tackle this by utilizing new methods like using pop culture moments on social media. Though it failed to really stick with viewers, and that’s a large reason as to why she lost the nomination.

Conclusion

To conclude on this analysis, the ‘Kamala IS Brat’ Campaign could be broken down into understanding who exactly was involved, how it was effective amongst younger audiences, and how successful it was in my own eyes. Both the Harris campaign and Charli were in the perfect position over the summer to create such an iconic campaign. The campaign itself was successful amongst younger audiences by heavily utilizing different methods of earned, shared, and owned media. This campaign also disrupted the political space due to its uniqueness. While Harris ended up not winning the election, this aspect of the overall campaign created a strong boost for her entrance into the race. She found a unique way to turn an iconic tweet into a part of her campaign as a whole. This was one of many attempts on social media she made to win the hearts of young voters. This campaign had a profound impact on many even to this day.

References

Caldwell, S. (2024, July 23). What to know about 'brat summer,' the trend taking over pop culture and politics. Retrieved from Today: https://www.today.com/popculture/music/what-is- brat-summer-charli-xcx-rcna163061
Faguy, A. (2024, July 24). The internet is enthralled with Harris. Will that get her more votes? Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn3897kdmpeo
Foreman, T. (2024, October 30). American Battleground: How 'brat summer' set up Kamala Harris' remarkable run. Retrieved from CNN: /10/30/politics/american-battleground-kamala- harris-brat-summer/index.html
Guardian Staff. (2024, November 6). From joy to defeat: the Kamala Harris campaign in 10 events. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2024/nov/06/kamala-harris-key-moments-election
Kim, E. T. (2024, August 11). Kamala Harris's Youth-Vote Turnaround. Retrieved from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kamala-harriss-youth-vote-turnaround Salazar, M. L. (2024, August 24). If Kanala is 'brat,' what does that say about modern politics? Retrieved from San Antonio Report: https://sanantonioreport.org/kamala-harris-brat-gen-z- millennials-fandoms-modern-politics/