Steph Edwards: The iced coffee debate. Can your brand land the punchline? Or is it creating social slop?

By Steph Edwards, Head of Social Content & Creative, WiredCo.

From iced coffees at job interviews to banners on the Empire State Building, to Fenty/Huda eye patches, brands have never been quicker to jump into the internet’s conversation. But at what point does cultural relevance become social slop?

Apparently, bringing an iced coffee to a job interview is controversial now.

It started with one creator questioning whether turning up to an interview, iced coffee in hand, was unprofessional. The internet did what the internet does best; picked sides.

On one side, it’s too casual. On the other, judging someone’s ability to do a job based on their beverage of choice is, arguably ridiculous. And so, the chaos rained down. Gen Z was blamed. Millennials weighed in. Recruiters weighed in.

Somehow, an iced coffee became a referendum on workplace etiquette, professionalism, and an entire generation.

And then, naturally, the brands arrived.

Starbucks responded with a social post showing someone holding an iced coffee captioned, “pulling up to the interview like.” Indeed Australia posted a video of someone bringing an iced coffee into a job interview with a sharp take on the debate.

Both worked for the pretty simple reason that they had the goods to land the punchline.

But having the goods to land the punchline is only half the battle.

(Pictured above: Steph Edwards, Head of Social Content & Creative, WiredCo.)

Earlier this year, an image of two climbers atop the Empire State Building holding a giant banner went viral. Almost immediately, brands began replacing the message on the banner with their own.

And so, the floodgates of social slop opened. Currys did it. Caraway did it. Petco did it. Spritz did it. Then dozens more followed.

And it’s hard not to see why.

There’s a point where moving at the speed of culture stops looking culturally relevant and starts looking like every social media manager got the same Teams message at once.

We saw it again last week with #EyePatchGate when Fenty Skin, Glow Recipe and Huda Beauty found themselves at the centre of an unexpected beauty drama after revealing suspiciously similar eye patch packaging within days of each other. The brands themselves leaned into the coincidence, and before long, everyone else wanted in too. Gillette, Poppi, and countless others quickly jumped on the trend, adapting the packaging for their own products and feeds. What started as a genuinely funny exchange between three beauty brands quickly became another template for everyone to copy. And somewhere along the way, brands started diluting their own identities just to generate more content about someone else’s moment. At what point does joining the conversation stop making you culturally relevant and start making you part of the slop?

We’ve spent years telling brands they need to move faster, be reactive, and join conversations (guilty as charged). But maybe we’ve overcorrected.

Before jumping in, brands should ask themselves whether they actually have a reason to be there.

Does this conversation naturally connect to our brand? Do we have something uniquely ours to add? Are we making the joke better? Or are we simply putting our logo on the same meme as everyone else because it happens to be trending?

Because there’s a difference between being part of culture and simply reacting to it.

If you have to work too hard to connect the trend back to the brand, it’s probably not the right trend.

Starbucks and an iced coffee debate. Indeed and job interviews. That’s how you land the punchline.

Being brand number 37 to Photoshop your product onto the Empire State Building? Or brand number 112 to post an eye patch container with a logo on it?

That might just be social slop.

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