Moo Deng will die. Your brand must be immortal

If you’ve been on the Internet lately, you’ve probably seen a greased pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng. She is undeniably the biggest “social trend” we’ve seen in 2024, with massive reach, an SNL parody, and inspiring countless pilgrimages to her home, the Thai zoo.

And of course, brands are also present on this hippopotamus.

The fascination is easily explained.

Cute Children of virtually every species do well in advertising. Especially young mammals. They have specific baby features (large forehead, fluffy eyes, etc.) that stimulate the innate protective and nurturing mechanism of all mammals. This is one of those weird things I discovered while studying medicine in my early twenties. This can be called the Baby Schema Effect (BSE) or, funnily enough, its technical name is “Kindchenschema”, defined by Konrad Lorenz in 1943.

Moo Deng won the hearts and resources of global marketers. Almost every brand with a social media account simply can’t help but slap Moo Deng on everything. Here are just a few examples.

Placing the Moo Deng stake in a strategic hole

The marketing obsession with Moo Deng is an example of what is wrong with modern advertising. This proves that few marketers have understood what “culture” means.

Large FMCG companies have teams of cultural marketing experts whose sole purpose is to introduce brands into our lives in a way that feels natural; like a cool buddy who recommends. The only thing they can do is sign a new star to star in a commercial or create content for the creator. The only thing they can do is create real fame for a brand that changes the behavior of the masses by changing history.

The most powerful example of this cultural black magic is the band Diageo i how Guinness became the UK’s favorite pint. Sponsoring rugby and now football is an obvious example. But the real secret ship is revealed in Freda Again’s fanning flames. Probably the hottest musical talent in the world.

I’m a huge fan of Fred Again. I was at his post-COVID concert with about 100 people in a wet field. Halfway through the set, he was sipping a warm can of Guinness. The brand quickly made this decision. Before we knew it, Fred was doing after-shows in pubs pulling pints of the black drink and swinging around in the van after the show to pour pints for his fans.

Skeptics will say Guinness was lucky.

Oh, and I suppose the “split the G” ritual, whereby anyone who drinks a pint of Guinness quickly downs a third on the first sip, is also lucky?

Bullshit.

Brands are lucky when they are expressive, meaningful and live in culture. Society must ensure that these “happy” trends take place. No one would come up with the idea of ​​splitting G if they didn’t care about Guinness.

Bringing brands into the culture takes a village. It’s a career-long craft.

And you know what doesn’t introduce your brand to culture? AND fat hippopotamus in digital advertising.

Strategy was abandoned in favor of digital tactics

My second gripe with the Moo Deng-filled ads is their complete lack of strategy.

It worked when I told my friend Joe about this column. He asked me to find at least one good example of a brand using Moo Deng. Finding one was like wrestling a wet hippopotamus.

I came across a bakery that didn’t ditch their strategic eggs in favor of Moo Deng icing. She made special, high quality, looking cakes. The creative idea amazed people within seconds. Moo Deng’s execution makes complete sense; it’s consistent.

Do you know what doesn’t make sense? Moo Deng bites into a slice of Pizza Hut pizza.

This lack of strategic thinking is not surprising.

I review performance data, case studies, and advertising all day, every day (when I’m not sharing G). I advise large agencies, media owners and brands. I assure you – if you’ve bothered to read this performance column, studied marketing in any way, or even sniffed How Brands Grow or Briefly About It, you’re in the top 10% of trained marketers.

Strategic cojones are completely missing. Just look at how marketers have been chasing NFTs and the metaverse. We would sell our own mentor if it meant being the first to do something and brag about it on LinkedIn.

The most disturbing data confirming this thesis are: work by Mark Ritson, IPA and Better Briefs, which shows that only 38% of UK agencies are clear about their target audience based on the brief. Worse yet, only 34% of brand marketers know their target audience.

When you have no idea what’s going on, whacking a hippo on Instagram seems pretty appealing, right? Well, the hippopotamus is the deadliest large land mammal in the world, killing about 500 people a year. From a campaign perspective, people aren’t as hungry for hippos as you think.

I am the author of some of them new research from IPA and System1 that shows that what grows brands is a long-term commitment to creative strategy and consistent creative execution.

Every Moo Deng post comes with a huge loss of opportunity. If you’re chasing this week’s cute hippo, you’re not doing proper long-term branding.

Platform metrics continue to confuse marketers

I have to put at least some of the blame on digital engagement metrics for this.

A local florist in Huddersfield who gets five times the likes and twice the views on her Dengy TikToks will undoubtedly bloom with tulips, but then what?

I don’t want to blame Big Tech for this. They have told us repeatedly that engagement metrics are essentially worthless. In 2015, Meta clearly showed that engagement does not translate into brand results. It even recently showed that CTR is not only bad, but also obsolete.

James Hurman was recently published Future demand via TikTok and Tracksuit, showing once again that clicks have nothing to do with brand awareness.

So parading Moo Deng around looking for clicks and views won’t help your sales.

So what will happen?

Well, branding will be there. In the same research, Hurman proved that Byron Sharp (*thunder is heard in the distance – cat screams*) is right with his law of double jeopardy. To increase your short-term sales results, you need to build your brand equity.

Whether long or short, he often takes care of himself.

This means less Moo Deng and more… an insight-driven strategy consistently implemented across a variety of campaigns characterized by emotional expression. In Compound Creativity, we showed that consistent brands see their profits double for this very reason.

Your brands must be immortal, unlike Moo Deng

Finally, one of the key principles of brand management must be that your brand outlives you… or your pygmy hippo’s childhood fame.

You are only the guardian of your brand. Unlike humans or hippos, strong brands are immortal gods (Editor’s note: with the exception of Taweret in ancient Egypt, the god of fertility and the hippopotamus).

Too many times in history have brands paired their ship with the wrong famous mortal and it has gone terribly wrong.

Who knows what Moo Deng will do next?

I don’t know if there will be any snarky words or wire scams in her future, but there will be Are we so careless that we want our billion-dollar brands associated with this clumsy mammal? Worthwhile marketers will work on how to create their own Moo Deng, branded characters that will outlive them.

Moo-Deng-Mania (MDM for Gen Z) simply confirms what the big marketing trend should be in 2025 – and nothing more.

Real brand growth will come from marketers who do less. Don’t chase the latest trend; clarify and align your strategy across your teams, including digital and social prospects.

Winning is like putting a strategy on every marketer’s desk in the industry titled “CAN YOU SAY NO TO SOMETHING TODAY?”

If you succeed, look down and see a fat hippo smiling at you.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that things have gone terribly wrong.