Traditional marketing is out. Unhinged marketing is in. Traditional marketing strategies are being upgraded to something much louder, and brands are religiously following this strategy — some infamous names including Duolingo and Nutter Butter.
From Duolingo’s savage TikToks to Nutter Butter’s chaotic tweets, these brands have embraced an unpredictable, irreverent voice that thrives on virality and cultural relevance. Let’s dive into why this trend works and which brands are doing it best.
What Is Unhinged Marketing?
Unhinged marketing is a deliberate withdrawal from typical, polished, corporate messaging. It’s cheeky, bold, and can even be downright absurd. These campaigns often lean heavily into humor, memes, and pop culture references, creating content that feels less like a sales pitch and more like your unfiltered group chat with your friends.
The goal is to cut through the noise. The bizarre and unexpected is what grabs our attention in ways traditional ads simply cannot. The unhinged approach brings relatability and entertainment, transforming followers into loyal brand advocates without overtly selling to them.
5 Brands Leading the Unhinged Movement
1. Duolingo
When it comes to unhinged marketing, Duolingo’s TikTok presence is unmatched. The language-learning app has turned Duo the Owl into a chaotic celebrity with unexpected collaborations, dancing to viral sounds, roasting users, and making aggressive threats about practicing your lessons and keeping up with your language streak.
Duolingo has leaned into trending collaborations to amplify its unhinged persona. A recent partnership with Roblox — a game beloved by Gen-Z — allowed users to interact with Duo, the mischievous owl, in virtual worlds, blending education with fun.
But Duolingo didn’t stop there. It recently announced a collaboration with Squid Game, combining two chaotic forces into one wildly unexpected marketing move. Duolingo keeps its content fresh, bizarre, and impossible to ignore by tying itself to trending pop culture phenomena.
Recently, Duolingo has also been branching out into music videos to bring a comedic yet jarring persona to Gen-Z. Last month, they released half-English and half-Korean “Duo joins Squid Game” and “Korean or Get Eaten” music videos in collaboration with the new highly-awaited season of Netflix’s Squid Games. Over the holiday season, they released a music video, “Bring My Parents Back” as an example of what happens to parents if they ignore their lessons.
Each music video is a high-quality production accumulating millions of views. This level of creativity and effort is entertaining as is Duolingo’s keen understanding of its audience. By embracing trends and bringing humor into their messaging, Duolingo effectively captures the attention of a younger demographic that values authenticity over traditional corporate polish.
2. Nutter Butter
While Duolingo may simply be unhinged and menacing, Nutter Butter is utterly horrifying. Nutter Butter has taken TikTok by storm with its absurdist humor. From meme-worthy unfiltered content to distorted, high-contrast videos that look truly terrifying, the peanut butter cookie brand consistently garners engagement through its unpredictable, absolutely diabolical posts.
Nutter Butter’s TikTok strategy often feels like a surreal fever dream as they use anthropomorphized cookies, chaotic scenarios, and a disjointed sense of humor to create videos that are as bewildering as they are entertaining.
This meme-worthy absurdity blended with existential dread is what brings viewers coming back for more and more. Popular posts such as the cookie dancing erratically to trending TikTok sounds lead to users flooding the comments with equal parts confusion and delight. The brand’s content is deliberately insane, designed to spark curiosity and generate shares through its sheer weirdness.
Nutter Butter also capitalizes on TikTok’s interactive features, encouraging users to stitch or duet its bizarre videos. This engagement strategy not only boosts visibility but also makes fans feel like co-creators in the brand’s chaotic universe. The result is a growing audience that tunes in just to see what kind of madness Nutter Butter will post next.
3. Ryanair
The infamous European budget airline embraces its reputation with self-deprecating humor, poking fun at its low-cost services, fees, and even customer complaints. Rather than ignoring its many flaws, Ryanair embraces them, creating TikToks that playfully roast both themselves and their passengers.
One of their signature moves is using the app’s greenscreen and face filter features to anthropomorphize their airplanes, turning them into snarky, relatable characters. Viral videos include an anthropomorphized Ryanair plane sarcastically commenting on the misery of delayed flights while dancing to a trending sound, a tactic that strikes a perfect balance between humor and relatability.
Ryanair is savage in their comment section by sending witty responses to users’ comments. Furthermore, in their videos, Ryanair remixes TikTok sounds and memes with aviation-related twists. Whether it’s a plane lip-syncing to a breakup song or parodying TikTok influencers’ aesthetic “day-in-the-life” vlogs, Ryanair’s content always feels fresh, timely, and amazingly absurd.
4. Scrub Daddy
Scrub Daddy, the smiley-faced sponge brand from Shark Tank, has taken TikTok by storm with its unexpectedly wild and creative content. Who would’ve known that a seemingly ordinary household product would become a social media sensation thanks to its chaotic and edgy TikTok humor?
Similar to Ryanair, Scrub Daddy’s socials feature anthropomorphism, giving its sponges vibrant personalities that shine in quirky skits. The brand leans heavily into visual storytelling, using props, costumes, and creative editing to bring the sponges to life. Gen-Z language is used in their videos to invite Gen-Z viewers to become brand loyalists, spanning from buying Scrub Daddy products to watching Scrub Daddy TikToks and sharing them with their friends.
Scrub Daddy’s standout TikTok strategies also include turning mundane cleaning tasks into theatrical, often hilarious productions. Viral videos using this tactic include using the sponge to perform an over-the-top cleaning routine set to a dramatic orchestral soundtrack, complete with slow-motion shots and exaggerated movements. The brand frequently participates in viral dances or sound bites. Fans are encouraged to stitch or duet these videos, further amplifying the brand’s reach and engagement.
What sets Scrub Daddy apart is its knack for combining absurdity with relatability. Many of its TikToks center around cleaning mishaps that viewers find all too familiar, such as scrubbing stubborn stains or accidentally making a bigger mess. By turning these situations into comedic sketches, Scrub Daddy positions itself as both entertaining and indispensable.
5. Chipotle
Chipotle has mastered the art of blending unhinged humor with clever, culturally relevant campaigns, securing its spot as a favorite among Millennials and Gen-Z. The brand’s marketing strategy revolves around being playful, self-aware, and tuned into trends that resonate with its younger audience. Whether it’s launching quirky collaborations, poking fun at itself, or jumping on TikTok trends, Chipotle knows how to keep the spotlight.
In October 2024, Chipotle partnered with Spirit Halloween to release a series of costumes themed around Chipotle items, such as a Chipotle Water Cup, Chipotle Burrito, Chipotle Bag, or Chipotle Fork. This is all with a cheeky nod to the brand’s meme-worthy items and poking fun at itself. This collaboration created buzz, memes, and user-generated content that flooded social media in the lead-up to Halloween.
Chipotle has embraced TikTok as a key platform for unhinged marketing. They frequently create or participate in viral challenges, encouraging users to engage directly with its content. Chipotle deeply taps into meme culture, often using humor to poke fun at itself or dramatize the love people have for its food. A famous case of TikTok humorously responding to customers recording their orders being made, which is revealed to lead to larger portion sizes, is exactly the kind of relatability that keeps Chipotle relevant within the fast food industry.
By leaning into randomness like Spirit Halloween collaborations, viral TikTok trends, or responding to their audience in a self-deprecating manner, Chipotle showcases its playful side while staying true to its core identity as a beloved food brand. The humor is relatable, the campaigns are culturally relevant, and the audience engagement feels natural rather than forced.
Why Unhinged Works
Unhinged marketing works because it disrupts the expected. It appeals to Millennials and Gen-Z, who value humor, authenticity, and brands that feel human. These generations gravitate toward brands that embrace the absurd and don’t take themselves too seriously, particularly on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. A bold voice makes brands feel human and relatable. Humor and absurdity encourage shares and organic reach.
However, this approach is not always going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. The real power of unhinged marketing lies not in simply being wild or chaotic, but in delivering the unexpected. It’s about knowing your audience, aligning with your brand’s identity, and treading carefully and respectfully to ensure the humor lands. Unhinged marketing isn’t without risk. It requires walking a fine line to ensure humor and satire don’t offend or alienate.
As with any trend, unhinged marketing may reach a point of oversaturation. Though, for now, it remains a powerful way to connect with younger audiences and foster genuine engagement. The key is to strike a balance between boldness and strategy, ensuring that your brand’s voice stays authentic while embracing the unpredictability that makes unhinged marketing so effective.
Is Unhinged the Answer?
Not always. It’s not about doing something unhinged, it’s about doing the unexpected. The real power lies not in being chaotic for chaos’ sake but in delivering surprises that feel authentic to your brand and genuinely resonate with your audience. Unhinged can work because it breaks patterns, catches attention, and injects humor or absurdity. But it comes with an expiration date. Over time, what feels fresh and daring can lose its edge, leading to oversaturation. When every brand leans into being unhinged, the risk of predictability or audience fatigue becomes very real.
How long can brands be unhinged for? Could they stretch it out? Is it possible? Well, being unhinged is a trend, not a long-term identity. It’s more of a balancing act and not sustainable in the long term. Some brands have built an entire persona around being wild and absurd, which works because it aligns with their playful and irreverent brand identities. But it’s not always about being unhinged, but more of strategically choosing when and how to lean into this tone.
It’s important to remember that Gen-Z — the primary audience for unhinged marketing — is constantly evolving. They’re shapeshifters who move swiftly between trends, humor styles, and cultural movements. What feels revolutionary today could feel stale tomorrow. Brands chasing unhinged marketing must recognize that staying relevant to Gen-Z means embracing adaptability. It’s about keeping up with their ever-shifting preferences and redefining what “unexpected” means rather than flying off the handle.
For some brands, being “unexpected” might mean unhinged, but for others, it could mean something entirely different. And when Gen-Z is always on the move, adaptability will always win over any trend.
