Your ATTN Please || Saturday, 8 March

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of a dear friend whose spirit touched all who knew them.

The millennial brand was one of flat lays, cringy minimal aesthetic, and of course, their beloved pastel pink. Their presence will be deeply missed by all whose knees have begun to creak. Yes. It’s official: the millennial brand is dead. So, what’s taking its place? Chaos, that’s what.

-Sophie, Writer

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

SXSW hits Austin, London Fashion Week bans animal skins & Google Ads has a big boo-boo

Austin, Texas is being wrapped in vinyl.

What possible reason would anybody have to do this? Uh, SXSW of course. Last year, KAP Media Group covered six buildings across the city in oversized billboards. This year, they’re expanding to 11. Brands will be “all over town with these massive wallscapes” Lori Brabant, KAP’s founder and CEO told Ad Age, such as Rivian, Paramount and FX.

The largest wrap will cover the Fairmont Hotel for HubSpot and will be 24,000 square feet, which is roughly as big as one third of the White House. SXSW will offer its usual mix of events, experiences and innovation. But AI is said to dominate the conversation at this year’s festival, which runs from March 7 - March 15.

The creator side of the festival also continues to grow, so the content is becoming increasingly tailored to up-and-coming creators. “Hot Ones” talk show host Chris Evans, tech and gadget YouTuber Marques Brownlee, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal of “Good Mythical Morning,” and “Your Rich BFF” Vivian Tu are all set to make an appearance.

London Fashion Week finally banned exotic animal skins.

This will be the first of the big four to actually put a ban in place at the event. In fact, it's the biggest industry event to do so thus far. So, will this be the beginning of an industry-wide rebrand? All designers staging fashion shows at the event will have to commit to ditching skins of animals such as crocodiles, alligators and snakes from their collections.

London was the first to ban fur in 2018. Skins now follow, with feathers, which are often live plucked from birds causing immense pain and distress, potentially next. The sustainable and ethical fashion market has grown exponentially over the last few years. And it's set to continue to do so, being valued at $12.46B in 2025, and an estimated US$ 53.37B by 2032. Because looking good doesn’t have to be at anyone’s expense (except your haters’), of course.

Google is apologising to advertisers after Google Ads stopped, well, serving ads over the weekend of March 1st.

Guys, you had one job. Other advertisers were met with error messages, high latency, and other issue. This, of course, led to lower conversion rates and displaced ad spend – which means loss of alotttt of revenue. Some advertisers estimate the impact to be in the TENS of thousands. Yikes. Read more about the blunder here.

-Sophie, Writer

DEEP DIVE

The millennial brand is dead

The millennial brand is not just dead.

It’s been MURDERED in cold blood by Gen Z and their rejection of everything clean, curated, and cohesive.

The brands that dominated Instagram from 2010 to 2020? All built on relentless symmetry and an ultra-polished aesthetic? Now relics of a bygone era. TikTok user Crump defines millennial brands as those that operated under the principle that everything needed to be on brand.

The colour palette? Soft pastels, always. The fonts? Sans-serif, naturally. The mood? Soft yet aspirational, like the contents of a Sunday morning routine video shot in golden-hour lighting. It was a world where everything was smooth, minimalist, and aesthetically perfect. But today - ew.

So, why the shift?

Tastes have always cycled between embracing and rejecting industry-driven modernism. One era’s sleek, high-tech, mass-commercial aesthetic gives way to another era’s authenticity-obsessed rejection of it.

As Molly Fischer of The Cut put it, “furniture dealers joke that brown goes in and out with every generation.” Right now, Gen Z is calling the design shots. They're the ones ushering in a world of micro-fringe bangs, septum piercings, and an overall kinda ugly, low-budget aesthetic.

For millennials, this is a personal attack. We spent our entire adult lives curating our social media presence. We meticulously staged and styled our iced coffees, bookshelves, and brunch spreads. We Facetuned, we filtered, we made sure our selfies had fresh lighting.

For Gen-Z, it's a welcome change from the god-awful Blanding.

What’s driving this shift? After some digging, it’s clear that a combination of cultural forces have led to the demise of the millennial brand:

• The value of authenticity – Gen Z craves raw, unfiltered reality. Nothing too polished, nothing too perfect.

• Perfectionist fatigue – We were exhausted from curating our every move. Gen Z would rather post something unhinged than overly edited.

• The death of “trying too hard” – Effortlessness is cool. Effort is cringe. Or maybe more, looking like you put in effort is cringe and putting in effort to look effortless isn’t? Idk.

• TikTok + microtrends – Rapid trend cycles mean long-term brand identities are harder to maintain. Chaos reigns.

• Residual pandemic trauma – YOLO. There are no style, design, or fashion rules anymore. Comfort rules.

• Anti-capitalism – The curated influencer aesthetic screams “selling you something.” Gen Z isn’t buying it—literally or figuratively.

The rejection of the millennial brand isn’t actually about aesthetics—it’s about power and identity. Millennials came of age in a world where personal branding wasn’t just encouraged; it was expected. Social media rewarded cohesion and a polished image.

The clean-girl aesthetic, the Glossier glow, the perfectly arranged avo-toast—these weren’t just trends. They were survival tactics in a gig economy where looking like you had it all together was part of professional success.

Gen Z, on the other hand, grew up in a world where that perfectionism looked fake, exhausting, and—perhaps worst of all—capitalist.

Their rebellion is about the rejection of the idea that your worth is tied to how brandable you are. Hence the rise of chaotic posting, blurry selfies, and aggressively anti-aesthetic fashion. It’s a cultural shift from aspiration to identification. Brands are no longer something to look up to; they’re something to align with, mock, remix, or reject entirely.

And let’s not forget the final nail in the coffin: the rejection of minimalism, hyper-organisation, and monochrome aesthetics. You've seen the likes, popularised by brands like Yeezy and Skims. Clutter, chaos, and personality are in. Kim's pristine snack drawers? A museum piece for an era that’s over.

What’s Next?

Millennial brands thrived in a world where looking expensive, streamlined, and polished was the goal. That era is done. Brands that want to stay relevant need to embrace the mess—imperfection, humour, personality. Less curation, more chaos. Less branding, more raw connection.

The millennial brand had a good run. But it’s time to move on. Rest in peace queen.

-Sophie, Writer

WE’VE GOTTA KNOW…

TREND PLUG

"Goodbye, goodbyeeee"

In my eyes, this trend is perfect.

It's a strange, almost melodic sound you can sing along to. It goes, "I'm going to say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye....." And creators are using it to capture those moments of weird relatability. Like when u telling the truth but u smile so now they think you're lying or how it feels putting on shoes without loosening em up.

How you can jump on this trend:

Find a strange but relatable moment. If it's slightly chaotic, even better. Film a reenactment of the situation, write your OST, and pop the trending sound over the top.

A few ideas to get you started:

• When you've been locked in for so long your memory of life before work fades away

• When you try talk to a colleague before actually gathering your thoughts

• How it feels sitting down to a long meeting without having time to make a coffee

-Maggie, Copywriter

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😲WTF: Pokemon-shaped Cheeto sells for $$$
✨Daily inspo: Central Cee’s wise words
🎧Soooo tingly: ASMR TO THE MAX
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST

yourattnp.lease

View more on Instagram

Want even more “YAP”ing? Check out the full podcast here.

ASK THE EDITOR

Q - I've had a few of my posts totally flop recently and it's getting hard to keep going. What should I do? -Isabel

Hey Isabel!

I totally understand where you're coming from. It can be hard to keep posting when you aren't getting much engagement. But the only way to improve your content is to keep posting. I'd encourage you to keep putting out content every day, paying attention to your analytics. Experiment by changing up your hook, images, and post style.

Don't be afraid to change tack quickly. You don't need to do the same thing for a month to see if it will work. If you do a few posts in a similar style and none work, try something else. The key is continuing to create content, even when you aren't quite sure what is going to work. Because you'll figure out what works way faster by continuing to post than you will by stopping!

- Charlotte, Editor ♡

WHAT DO YA THINK?

PSST…PASS IT ON