Why weird wins in modern marketing-and how brands are pulling it off

"Upon entering the one-day immersive installation known as GrazaVerse, guests were greeted with a surrealist tableau: a Renaissance-style cherub statue "peeing" olive oil, with bread skewers for dipping, risotto served by a mysterious set of disembodied hands behind a wall, and a soap dispenser filled with olive oil for drizzling on soft serve. As bizarre or offbeat this event, built to introduce olive oil brand Graza's new glass bottles, might sound, it represents a cross-industry trend in which brand creative is getting ... weird."

""In the last year or two, there has definitely been an uptick in brands leaning into the weird," says Ochuko Akpovbovbo, who writes the consumer-culture-focused newsletter As Seen On. Akpovbovbo connects this shift to the overwhelming deluge of content that has inundated today's consumer. "There's so much content out there right now that brands are pumping out, individuals are pumping out, and creators are pumping out." Weirdness allows brands to seize attention."

"Steven Vigilante, director of strategic partnerships of the prebiotic soda brand Olipop, sees weirdness as a way to stand out from the predominant polished digital aesthetic. "I think consumers, especially the younger generation, are so jaded by the constant barrage of polished advertising in the world today," he says. "The weird, the unique, the quirky-it cuts through the noise and helps you break through as a brand.""

GrazaVerse used surreal, sensory activations—olive oil from a cherub statue, disembodied hands serving risotto, and olive-oil soap dispensers—to introduce new glass bottles. 2025 campaigns increasingly embrace surreal, controversial, and deliberately cringe approaches to cut through crowded content feeds. Brands and experts link the trend to overwhelming content volume and consumer fatigue with polished advertising, especially among younger audiences. Embracing the weird can help brands stand out, reach new audiences, build loyalty, and inject playfulness into marketing strategies. The strategy aims to seize attention and disrupt the predominant polished digital aesthetic.

Read at Aol