Hello and welcome to the first issue of Extremely on Brand! I hope you enjoy it.

Have thoughts, feelings, or feedback? Drop a comment at the bottom of this post and I’ll respond. And now, let’s dive in!

Is there anything more luxurious, more indulgent than the 30-45 minutes at lunchtime when you work from home? The world is your oyster. Take a nap. Read a book. Watch tv.

My lunchtime vice of choice is watching episodes of what my mother lovingly calls “trash tv.” This is how - during The Real Housewives of Miami - I accidentally stumbled upon an absolute banger of a brand jingle.

I was away from the remote (read: getting more snacks in the kitchen) when the show cut from grown women arguing to commercials.

And that’s when I heard it: The infectious synth-bass beat. The vaguely Eastern European voice. The bizarre lyrics.

It was the Huggies Baby Butt Bop. 

The Bop is best consumed within the context of its original format: an energetic ad for Little Movers (below) and a lower-key version for Little Snugglers. Both feature babies looking cute and doing baby things while the lead singer (Simon Owen of Future Perfect) narrates lyrically with verses like “Rolly butt, Eat-your-mostaccioli butt. Boney butt, Riding-on-a-pony butt.”

Huggies’ creative agency, Quality Meats, was fully aware it had struck gold. In an interview with Muse, Quality Meats co-founder Gordan Sang said, “We knew we were onto something with this track because we couldn't get it out of our heads, and not in an annoying way but in a good way where we just wanted to keep listening to it and singing it ourselves." This has been my exact experience for the past 6 weeks.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I have been singing this song every day - unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, running on the treadmill. I change the lyrics to match my mood. (“Doggy butt, Little furry Beanie butt” is a popular version.) I’m obsessed. As a child-free adult, here I am writing a whole newsletter about a diaper jingle - it’s that earworm-y.

Huggies has gone all-in on this ode to butts with an "Alphabutt" board book, a downloadable font, an official lyric video, and a Spotify track. (Bafflingly, Spotify shows only 1,071 plays at the time of this publication, half of which I am almost certainly responsible for. By comparison, the Burger King Whopper, Whopper song has over 6.7 million listens.)

But is it any surprise that I would love this weird little song so much, even without a baby of my own? Huggies crafted the perfect dopamine hit, targeting Millennial nostalgia with laser precision. Rather than make yet another diaper commercial with saccharin violin music and soft closeups, Quality Meats drew from the genres of our youth: 90’s Eurodance and 00’s booty songs. The end result sounds like an Ace of Base/Ying Yang Twins mashup. It’s a Baby Got Back-style anthem for the next phase of adult life where you might have an actual baby.

@kylegordonisgreat

Planet of the Bass (feat. DJ Crazy Times & Ms. Biljana Electronica) #djcrazytimes #eurodance #90s #dancemusic #edm #funny #funnyvideos #funnytiktok

Brand attempts at stirring up adolescent nostalgia are becoming increasingly more common. Every day more of our memories are being revived, repackaged, and presented back to us as new: Barbie. The dELiA*s aesthetic. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Beanie Babies.

Some of these nostalgia plays are a fun trip down memory lane. Others remind us that we are old and getting older (looking directly at you, Target Y2K fashion line). The Huggies Butt Bop falls squarely into the first category - a particularly prescient strategy when targeting new parents, as humans often feel most nostalgic for the past “during periods of transition like… having a child.”

I say bring on more musical throwbacks. Polar fleece zip vests are dead to me, but I’d love a 2023 version of those chorus line-style Gap commercials. And in 30 years, when the babies from the Butt Bop commercials are grown, I hope they stumble upon a diaper jingle that sounds like a b-side from Taylor Swift’s Midnights and have a little moment of nostalgia for themselves. It’s the circle of life, baby.

An Extra Dose of Nostalgia

• I’m obsessed with this Pez-like dog treat dispenser; we’re on auto-ship for the little biscuit refills.

• The NYT argues (correctly) that we should all just get over ourselves and embrace the joy of Dave Matthews Band.

• Abercrombie & Fitch is doing a reissue of some of their most popular “vintage” (read: 2000’s 🥴) looks for men and women. Come for the cargo pockets, stay for the lace-trim camis and shrunken cable knit sweaters.

• BRB - putting this song’s lyrics in my AIM away message.

• Igloo is taking you back to the summers of the early 90’s with their Retro Collection. If you didn’t bash your teeth on the drink spout of this thing during a frantic 30-second soccer timeout, did you even go to camp?

• You know those photos of your parents, drunk as little skunks, at a Club Med before you were born? Vacation Sunscreen is that vibe but with more SPF. The Chardonnay Oil makes me feel like the fanciest lady at the pool. (Shipping on Vacation’s site is free over $50, but they also have a fully-stocked Amazon store.)

This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission. I only link out to products I personally use and love, and any commission earned offsets the cost of sending the newsletter.