June TRENDspotting Report.

By BarkleyOKRP FUEL Team

Welcome to the June edition of the BarkleyOKRP trends report, our monthly snapshot of what inspires, informs and occupies the modern consumer’s attention so brands can better connect with their audiences.

This month, we admitted we made a mistake in our trend forecasting. We were all pretty positive it would be a YeeHaw Summer, with Cowboy Carter dropping in late Spring and Shaboozey’s A Bar Song still charting in the top 10 after being released in April. However, things have changed. 

We’re now dubbing this a Pop Positivity Summer. While there is so much swirl and negativity coming at us from all angles this election cycle, we’re craving the simple pleasures and positivity that glitter pop music and “glitter pop moments” give us. 

Let’s examine a few of them…

MACRO TRENDS 

Here are two big trend moments we observed over the past month that we feel are part of the bigger cultural story of Pop Positivity Summer. 

Glitter Pop Princesses ReCreate Barbie Summer

• WHAT HAPPENED: The glitter pop Princesses taking over the radio and everyone’s feeds right now. Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter cover Chappell Roan. Katy Perry is even dropping a new album. And, of course, Billie Eilish can get looped into this because Birds of a Feather falls into the same category.  So, why do we think we have a Femininomenon happening for the second year in a row? Barbie Summer was one thing – a movie that felt empowering but also good, with activations from HUNDREDS of brands that let people feel some ownership over the experience. Less than a year later, people are searching for that feeling. There is even more going on in the world right now than last summer to make us feel negative that this pop music revolution spearheaded by Gen Z women that is fun to dance to and scream sing in the car is this year’s Barbie movie – just makes sense.
• IMPLICATION: People are craving pop-music-esque escapism from the “real world.” Brands have a unique opportunity to strategically figure out how to create work that makes their target audience feel like singing the chorus of Please Please Please does right now and push themselves towards the center of that Barbie summer feeling? If we can figure out how to do that successfully, maybe we can have our brands go from Chappell Roan singing alone at a festival to being a guest AND musical act on The Tonight Show.  

Parasocial Relationships with Relationships

• WHAT HAPPENED: Between the TikTok love triangle between Yuval, Ayame, and Oliver, the blossoming love story between Gabby and Tyler that started from a tall people interviewing other tall people TikTok interview, and the heart-wrenching break-up between NFL WAG Tianna and Bengals player Cody) – we’re in a relationship with relationships. The number of views and comments on these videos is one thing, but the amount of dialogue and people creating videos talking about these deeply personal situations outside of the creator’s pages is a whole other. We’ve always had parasocial relationships with celebrities (gossip magazines have been around since the 18th century!), and there’s always been devastation over celeb break-ups, but the sheer amount of content being created by creators in relationships specifically about their relationships has taken this to a whole new level. And, with all of the negativity out there, people are looking for positive things to root for and be excited about – and is anything more exciting than watching two people fall in love?! 
• IMPLICATION:  TikTok is entertainment, and these creators are now celebrities. However, unlike celebrities, creators rose to fame by being themselves and being real, showing us what they want to show us about their lives. Which, in turn, ensures we’re even more emotionally involved in their relationships than we would the average celebrity. This allows brands to consider whether they have permission now to enter someone else’s love story and hop on that feel-good, lovey-dovey positivity. In Gabby and Tyler’s case – StockX invited Gabby to get some ultra-rare size 16 shoes as a gift for Tyler, now becoming an important moment in their relationship & TikTok story. 

Things to watch out for in July

Here are some things we think are highly likely to become topics of conversation and/or generators of the next big meme in July! 

• It’s been a big sports month so far, and there are no signs of slowing down! Copa America and Euro 2024 dominate soccer, MLB All-Star break activities, the British Open, Wimbledon, and the Olympics (will the Seine be clean enough?). 
• In entertainment, we’ve got new music from Katy Perry, Eminem, Childish Gambino, and Ice Spice to look forward to, as well as Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine, both sure to be box-office hits.  

That sums up the highlights for last month. If you want more, download our appendix to see what we’ve been tracking per platform over the month. We’ll return after the last Friday of the month to discuss everything that happened that month. And, as we always ask internally, let us know if we missed anything! We’d love to hear what trends you’re seeing pop up on your FYPs!

The BarkleyOKRP TRENDspotting report is a must-read for the modern consumer (and the brands hopping to attract + retain the modern consumer). Follow along each month as our in-house trend experts, FUEL, highlight the who, what + why this matters.

For a thorough evaluation to help your brand build its biggest future, contact our Chief Growth Officer, Jason Parks, at jparks@barkleyokrp.com.