If you don\u2019t know Grant & Ash, they have a song for you.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, creators Grant Gibbs and Ashley Gill, also known as A Twink and a Redhead, have amassed more than 900,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, where they post comedy skits and music videos. They\u2019re currently on a North American tour performing a collection of songs that often poke fun at brands, including hits like \u201cPanera,\u201d \u201cBarnes & Noble,\u201d \u201cDisney Adult,\u201d and \u201cBJ Maxx,\u201d which riffs on the retailer TJ Maxx (or TK Maxx in Australia and Europe). The backdrop of the stage is, quite literally, a strip mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a brand-heavy show,\u201d Gill told us. \u201cI think we name-drop a lot of brands because it was just what we were raised with in New Jersey, being around strip malls all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the content is company-focused, the duo\u2019s humor isn\u2019t exactly safe for work. (In one video, they fake a brand trip with Disney to Avatar\u2019s<\/em> Pandora and imply that Gill got intimate with the Na\u2019vi.) It\u2019s all part of the charm, and Gibbs said he\u2019s determined to never sacrifice art for money.<\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of our content is satire,\u201d he told us, acknowledging that certain creative choices may mean that \u201cDisney will never work with us, and we\u2019re fine with that,\u201d even if the company is one of his dream brand partners.<\/p>\n While Disney may be out of the question, the duo has built a rolodex of other brand partners including Netflix, La Roche-Posay, Bravo, Bose, and American Eagle. Even the DNC got in on the joke, letting the two sing about getting \u201cdicked down\u201d at the convention for a video that racked up more than 76,000 likes on TikTok.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will still stop us, that was two years ago now, to be like\u2026that was funny,\u201d Gill said.<\/p>\n Gibbs and Gill, who became friends in sixth grade, have learned a lot in their time together, including how to make content, branded or otherwise, that gets people watching.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to cater our normal videos to be appealing to a brand,\u201d Gill said. \u201cWe\u2019re just hoping the brands that get it, get it.\u201d<\/p>\n When potential brand partners first started to reach out, Gibbs said he and Gill were as surprised as they were happy. \u201cBy no means was the goal to make money,\u201d Gill agreed. \u201cWe just wanted to post funny stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the first brands the two worked with were Grindr, Aeropostale, and Spotify. With Spotify, Gibbs said the duo was allowed to \u201crun wild\u201d and \u201cuse [their voices]\u201d across all content made with them, which helped it resonate. Ditto for Fossil, which the duo worked with on InStyle\u2019s online series The Intern<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey weren\u2019t too in the weeds, they let us run crazy [and] do what made that show successful,\u201d Gill said.<\/p>\n Building branded content off of the duo\u2019s long-standing bits is often what works best, as well as being upfront about what\u2019s an ad, Gill said. Eos recently hosted a \u201cBush on Main\u201d event to promote its shave oils, which was inspired by a trend Gibbs posted about where men were showing their pubes online. He said it was one of his favorite brand partnerships to date.<\/p>\n But sometimes new bits work, too. Gill said the two started dressing up as historical figures and doing skin care in brand deals to pretty positive reception. One TikTok with The Ordinary that shows the two getting ready to attend Ford\u2019s Theatre as Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln has more than 63,000 likes.<\/p>\n Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want a video to be posted just because we\u2019re getting paid for it,\u201d Gill said. \u201cI also want our audience to like it and enjoy it and stay to the end, and I think our branded content fits really seamlessly into the stuff we\u2019re already making.\u201d<\/p>\n In Gill\u2019s opinion, the amount of brand parodies the two do actually works in brand partners\u2019 favor. \u201cI think doing the satirical brand deals helps people [engage] because they don\u2019t know if we\u2019re [being] real or not,\u201d she said. \u201cEspecially when brands let us run crazy, they\u2019re always commenting like, \u2018I can\u2019t believe Spotify let you do this,\u2019 which is my favorite comment on a brand deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Risk-averse brands can sometimes be a tough nut to crack, as the two learned when they pitched a clean version of their \u201cPanera\u201d song to the fast-casual chain\u2019s reps for a potential partnership and were turned down. More than 84,000 videos on TikTok have featured the explicit version, and Gibbs said he felt like it was a missed opportunity. He added that marketers need not be afraid of being associated with the word \u201ctwink,\u201d which means a \u201cslender gay man\u201d and is not, in fact, a slur. Panera did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n In general, Gill said she believes it\u2019s \u201cbetter to be controversial in advertising than boring,\u201d and with that comes some risk. In other words, brands that want to reap the benefits of the Grant & Ash audience shouldn\u2019t necessarily send slide decks of dos and don\u2019ts or make significant edits, and should ideally be fans of the account so they know what they\u2019re getting into, the two said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there starts to be a weird thing where they\u2019re taking creative control and it becomes a full-blown advertisement that\u2019s not even our voice or style [or] wouldn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d Gibbs said, \u201cthen we\u2019d rather just not do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Gill said Sephora reached out last year hoping for an anthem of its own, and the two are hoping more brands see the opportunity in parody as they continue their tour.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s been really rewarding to see that not everyone is trying to be PG all the time,\u201d Gill said. \u201cWe can reel it in if we need to, but I really like people who want to use us for our voice and tap into that audience and don\u2019t try to suppress the humor of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n In summary, she said, \u201cIn a world of Paneras, be a Sephora.\u201d To which Gibbs promptly responded, \u201cGet a tramp stamp of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nIn on the joke<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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