Olivia Rodrigo's Genius Gen Z Marketing Strategy: TikTok Trends & Glossier Partnernship
Olivia Rodrigo is without a doubt the quintessential Gen Z pop superstar, starting from her music that strongly resonates with her age demographic and down to her TikTok-centric marketing strategy and relevant brand partnerships. The biggest advantage that she has is that she herself is Gen Z––she is able to reach and engage with her target audience so effectively because she herself is part of it. While this post contains statistics and references to studies, I do want to note that this is very much simultaneously a personal reflection on her strategy as another Gen Z member of her listeners.
The first component of her marketing strategy is, as minuscule as it may seem, is her username on TikTok. Rather than using an official handle of her full name like most musicians, she goes by “livbedumb,” which to me, reads more like a “finsta” (fake instagram) or close friends only account. Intentional or not, this username choice resonates with her mostly Gen Z audience, the demographic that strays away from the pressure to curate a picture-perfect image on Instagram and values authenticity and relatability above all in their social media activity.
And this “close friends only” energy carries over into her content, with her creative use of trending TikTok sounds to regularly post engaging content for her listeners. According to a study done by TikTok, 50% of users say music makes TikTok more engaging, while 67% of users prefer brand videos with a trending sound. To give a few examples, when Ariana Grande’s recent album “eternal sunshine” released on March 8, 2024, she posted a video with a snippet of the song “the boy is mine” on March 17. Shortly after the release of “eternal sunshine,” several of Grande’s songs were being used by many popular creators on the app, and Olivia cleverly bandwagoned to remind her fanbase and the rest of the world that she was still on the start of the GUTS tour.
Gen Z content creators like Olivia also aren’t afraid to bring back previous trending sounds despite them being from a few months or a year ago. As humour is also an essential component of Gen Z social media behaviour, using past trending sounds serve as a reminder to a soundbite that previously made the rounds and made them laugh. Below she uses two sounds that were considered “trending” at least three to six months ago. In the first video, she uses the older soundbite to promote her newest single “obsessed”. While in the second one, she hones in on a well-recognized snippet of a Miranda Cosgrove-interview-turned-meme to create humorous and relatable content about her music that her fans would in turn understand and recognize this trait in her music.
And surprisingly, it conversely makes users appear in the loop with TikTok culture rather than out, which also is an effective marketing strategy for the nostalgic Gen Z who are responsible for the resurgence of the 2000s Y2K fashion among many other relics of the past. Olivia employs this exact tactic and hones in this sense of nostalgia to connect with her audience with sounds from their and her childhood, like the High School Musical movies.
She, of course, uses her own songs on TikTok to promote her music, but what sets her apart is the timeliness and the creativity she employs in them. For example, to commemorate that she was in London as part of the Europe leg on the GUTS tour, she used her song “so american” sped up in proper TikTok fashion, and filmed several scenes around touristy spots in London. Clips of her wearing a Union Jack beanie on a boat in the Thames River are cleverly juxtaposed to the song lyrics “he says I’m so American”, dedicated to her current partner, British actor Louis Partridge.
On Halloween of 2023, she promoted her single “vampire” by lip syncing to the song in a TikTok. This was a perfect example of utilising timeliness, a trait the algorithm highly values according to First Page, to boost awareness for her track that had just released a month ago at that time.
The most notable and creative use of a trend was when she announced the dates for the Asia and Australia leg of the GUTS tour. This video style is typically used to describe desirable traits in a partner, acting as if they are somewhere nearby to be found and shouting “where?!”.
In place of the characteristics, the cameraman says the city while the screen displays the date in text, and Olivia shouts “where?!” to complete the trend.
Olivia and her team are also clearly aware of the impact of her TikTok presence, as her videos display an awareness of the memes and trends going on within her own fandom and eagerness to participate in them. For example, she participated in a trend started by a fan to her song “girl i’ve always been”, where users shared paralleling photos of their current self and their younger self to showcase a personality trait of theirs that has stuck with them since childhood.
Olivia’s genius marketing extends over to the brand partnerships she has that are with ones that her audience love, like beauty company Glossier, Crumbl Cookies, and drinkware company Stanley.
Glossier announced in April 2022 that they would be partnering with Olivia for a limited edition collection. The collection included their signature structured makeup bag, a tinted lip balm in a rosy-mauve shade called “Pisces” after her star sign and her social media profile bio, and a customizable eyeshadow palette. She explained that she chose to partner with Glossier specifically because she resonates with their “less is more” philosophy:
“I love a natural and glowy look—when your skin just shines through, which is like, Glossier’s whole thing, and I love that.”
As avid followers of the clean girl aesthetic, Glossier and Olivia Rodrigo are the dream team for a makeup collaboration for Gen Z.
In March 2023, when Crumbl Cookies announced that they partnered with Olivia to create the GUTS cookie, user Dreindallas reviewed it and became a meme among the fandom because he accidentally mispronounced her name as “Olivia Rodriguez'' and rated the cookie a 0/10. Olivia responded to this cheekily by using the sound with the caption “idk i think it’s rlly good.”
This humorous response increases her relatability as a public figure and as an added bonus, serves as a unique way to gain more awareness of her partnership with Crumbl.
Finally, most recently in July 2024, Stanley announced that they will be releasing a purple, star-adorned cup in their 40 oz Quencher in partnership with Olivia. The Stanley Quenchers are tumblers that are also well-loved by Gen Z after TikTok users were sharing all the creative ways they were utilising their Stanley cups beyond drinking water. This partnership also gains points for authenticity for Olivia, as she first mentioned her love for Stanley cups after being influenced by TikTok in the “10 Things Olivia Rodrigo Can’t Live Without” video for GQ. This collaboration with Stanley appears to be a much more organic and authentic partnership in true Gen Z fashion.
What’s most remarkable about Olivia is the fact that she has achieved so much success in a span of less than five years and she’s only able to legally drink in the United States this year. With an already large and loyal fanbase of 52 million users on Spotify and 21.3 million followers on TikTok, it’s clear that she’s an expert in interactively and thoughtfully engaging with them like the Gen Z superstar she is, and this is only the beginning for her. As a listener of hers since “drivers license”, I’m excited to see how she grows into her full potential as an artist, and I’ll definitely be keeping a keen eye on how her promotion strategy will evolve over the years too!
