Sabrina Carpenter has built an entire cinematic universe around her brand identity, and businesses should be paying attention.

When the name Sabrina Carpenter comes to mind, with it comes an entire visual universe of pin curls, old Hollywood glamour, cheeky lyrics, lipstick marks, cutesy choreography, and hyper-femininity. 

But let’s get one thing clear here.

This isn’t just due to aesthetics. This is a brand done right. When it comes to branding, good, no, great branding is done through world building.

Its reach extends far beyond color palettes and visuals. It’s embedded in your tone of voice, the other businesses and brands you collaborate with, the products or services you put out… 

It’s the big things like the styling of your product photo shoots but it’s also the little things like your email signature and emoji choice.

When you world build your brand and embody it in every small detail, the big ones make even more sense. 

This creates trust between you and your clients. They know what to expect and you know how to deliver.

And if I had to name one current popular icon who is consistently delivering?

Someone who has very rapidly built a HUGE cult following because of it?

It’s Sabrina Mother Freaking Carpenter.

She went from an afternoon performance at Coachella to two years later headlining the festival with a production that outshone all others there. (sorry, love ya Biebs)

That type of turnaround time is unfathomable for newer artists. 

If you’re wondering how to world-build your own brand, or maybe you just love Sabrina, let’s get into what we can learn from her here!

We’re Gonna Cover:

• “Aesthetic” vs. World Building
• The Sabrina Carpenter Universe
• Sabrina Carpenter’s Partnerships
• The Power of Repetition (and exploration)
• What Businesses Get Wrong About Branding
• The Real Secret to Sabrina Carpenter’s Success

“Aesthetic” vs. World Building

So I’ve touched on it a little but what is the difference between aesthetics and world building when it comes to fleshing out a brand?

Aesthetics are your visuals.

These are typically the most instantly recognizable elements of a brand. They stick in people’s minds and make up a visual identity of what a brand looks like.

Colors, motifs, typography, photos, graphics, logos, packaging, and so on.

There’s a lot to work with here in terms of visually defining your brand. I would say this is probably the simplest part of putting together a brand identity.

You can easily identify things that look like they belong in the same category and decide on placing them together to create cohesion.

However, world building is referring to creation beyond the visuals. The make up of all the layers within a brand. Okay, hang on here but imagine your brand is a person.

The aesthetics are the way they look, their outfit, hair, makeup, maybe even the setting you most often see them in.

But what about their personality? What are their interests and hobbies? Their likes and dislikes? Where do they go when they’re celebrating a big win? What do they do when they’re sad?

The more you know about a person beyond their looks the more connection you feel.

The same goes for a brand.

World building is ensuring that every move your business makes fits within the same world, the same brand personality, the same universe.

Things beyond aesthetics that apply to this range from internal to external:

• The businesses you partner with
• The products and services you provide
• The way you treat your employees
• The values your business upholds
• What you do in the face of controversy or when you mess up
• Tone of voice (literally your messaging and how you speak to your audience)
• Specific humor style
• Recurring sayings
• Motifs
• The style of content you post on social media
• Email signatures
• Emotional Vocabulary
• Catchphrases
• Interview Language
• Facial Expressions
• Posture
• Gestures
• What consistent emotions does your brand evoke?
• Symbolism

The list can go on and on…

But the bottom line is, every single thing you do when showing up publicly is adding to your brand image whether intentional or not.

If it’s messy or inconsistent, it isn’t strong or reliable.

However, when you intentionally world-build, and give your brand its own personality, set of values, morals, and uphold them consistently… 

You’ve created something people connect with.

The Sabrina Carpenter Universe

Now, let’s talk about The Sabrina Carpenter Universe. Because as I said before it is no secret that she was able to very quickly gain and retain fan approval and appreciation.

And this is very much tied to her extremely strong and consistent image.

We’ve got a few core themes going on here. These are the recurring motifs she will always return to, because they further strengthen her image and at this point are core pillars in her universe.

Old Hollywood Glamour

Some specific nods we’ve seen are:

• Audrey Hepburn
• Marilyn Monroe
• French couture femininity
• 50s/60s bombshell styling
• Vintage cinema
• Playboy-era cheekiness
• Hyper-feminine performance

A couple great recent examples of this theme were her coachella performance where she literally themed her entire set at “Sabrinawood”

and

Her most recent Met Gala look literally referenced the Audrey Hepburn film Sabrina through actual film strips sewn into the dress.

These reinforce her consistent style of vintage femininity and that campy glamour identity.

It’s also worth noting we saw a lot of these same 50’s/60’s style references on stage for her Short n’ Sweet tour as well!

The best part is, there are still so many references to uncover in this “Old Hollywood Glamour” theme that she can continue to play with new motifs from this era and still stay cohesive within her brand.

Performance Style

Here, we see once again a very consistent image associated with Sabrina.

She constantly is giving us playful choreography, exaggerated femininity, wink-at-the-camera confidence that makes us blush and giggle, theatrics, camp humor, suggestive humor, and vintage pin-up girl energy.

She is a powerhouse performer.

There is no doubt about it. You don’t find her out of character, she stays in it the entire time. It’s like watching a character in a play, you believe who she is on stage because she doesn’t falter. 

Whether it’s a slow ballad or a pop song, they are always performed by the same person. (You might be thinking well, duh). But it’s more than Sabrina herself, it’s her personality that is shining through. 

I think we can all point to lacking performances from people who don’t command a stage in any unique or discerning way. But you cannot say that about Sabrina, she not only commands attention, but she does it in a very repeatable, recognizable way.

Lyricism

Sabrina’s tone of voice is yet another reinforced part of her image. If you go back through her discography you can only see it get stronger as she has progressed in her brand image.

She is consistently cheeky, flirtatious, witty, feminine, self-aware and playfully dramatic.

Her songs reflect this over and over again. But beyond this, she speaks that way too. If you’ve ever seen her Christmas special you recognize the humor throughout is consistent with her songs. 

Her interviews evoke this same personality as well, even her humor online.

The fact that Sabrina speaks the same way on stage, off, on her album, in an interview and online, strongly reinforces that she is authentic.

Having a consistent tone of voice is extremely important in building trust with an audience.

That authenticity lets us know that what we see is what we get with her. 

Sabrina Carpenter’s Recognizable Look

Tying it all together is Sabrina’s instantly recognizable look.

Blonde bombshell with big hair, bangs, short hemlines, and platform shoes.

When it comes to her look, Sabrina plays in this retro glamour with plenty of vintage influences.

She doesn’t follow trends, she consistently references cinematic femininity (these once again play into her hollywood glamour) and it works because it’s so consistent.

Because as I mentioned before, in the vintage Hollywood references she pulls from there is so much to play with, she’s able to go from pin-up girl to 50’s lingerie, to Dirty Dancing and it all makes sense for her.

Her hair and makeup are pretty consistent as well. We always have big hair, eyes and lips, dark full eyebrows, over blushed cheeks and a lined lip. 

This too plays up that pin-up girl aesthetic which is once again a tie-in to one of her overall themes.

Sabrina Carpenter’s Partnerships

As I mentioned before, who you do business or align yourself with when it comes to other brands further enforces your identity.

Sabrina just had Madonna at her Coachella performance, people predicted this before it happened because it felt like such a great fit for her, and it was.

Both of them exist within a similar lineage of theatrical, feminine pop performance. They both share that sexual confidence, the iconic visual identity, it’s all cohesive.

Furthermore,

She’s teamed up with Christina Aguilera, Stevie Nicks, Shania Twain, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift… You consistently see her with fellow popular female powerhouses and this is extremely intentional and expected of her.

She intentionally covered a song Sandy sings from Grease on the Eras tour that went viral and many claim cemented her initial popularity before Espresso was ever released.

Other on par brand partnerships were: 

Pairing with Dunkin for her song Espresso.

Johnnie Walker – she’s always referencing drinking in her music and had a tie-in with her song, Go Go Juice.

She shows us that every brand and person she aligns herself with is to reinforce the image she upholds.

The Power of Repetition (and exploration)

At the end of the day, the most powerful tool in your branding arsenal is repetition. 

By repeating the same themes and motifs you build recognition. The more times someone sees something associated with your brand, the more they will pair those ideas together in their mind.

This is the same reason I can go out for a coffee and start humming “that’s that me, espresso”. Or see a blonde girl with bangs and big curly hair and instantly think of Sabrina.

Repetition of motifs with your brand will bring up your business in someone’s mind long after you advertised to them.

Think of all the times a State Farm jingle popped into your head or you craved a food or drink without seeing something directly associated first. 

It happens to us all the time.

Repetition builds that recognition and emotional memory.

Repetition also builds trust.

As I’ve stated before, by repeating something you begin to set an expectation in someone’s mind. They associate you with the specific thing you do and expect you to do it again and again.

Therefore, when you do, do it again, when you show up in the same light they expected, it creates trust.

Think of when someone in your life acts “out of character” it hurts your trust with that person and warps a bit of your perception of them. 

When people do things we don’t expect we feel like we don’t know them as well as we thought we did and those same emotions can be tied to a business and their brand.

Now all that being said,

The real key here is not everything must be exactly the same.

Not everything Sabrina Carpenter does looks identical.

That’s why I’ve noted the exploration in your repetition. 

Know your pillars so you have a recurring theme, but then play in that.

Sabrina didn’t limit herself to one vintage era, one color palette, or hairstyle. You can repeat without getting boring. In fact you should repeat without being boring.

This explorative repetition is what creates intrigue and dynamics in your brand. You aren’t a one trick pony.

This is why the pillars I mentioned earlier are important. Because a lot of themes, references and motifs can be associated with one pillar. Play around but just ensure all the strings tie back to one of your main themes.

This is also a way to evolve your brand over time. It will retain the same in emotional tone but it should be flexible in portraying that tone.

What Businesses Get Wrong About Branding

We see it all the time. Copying trends, chasing virality, focusing too much on color palettes and logos, or even worse, having inconsistent messaging.

These are the things the average consumer believes they recognize about a brand.

But businesses are forgetting what lies underneath are the subconscious cues.

Emotional identity, storytelling, world building, cohesion, symbolic references, brand feeling…

The strongest brands create a world people want to step into.

They sell more than a product, they sell an experience, an identity, a persona attached. 

The best brands make a person believe they also embody what you’re selling by buying your product. They align themselves with your logo because of their emotional ties, not because of your graphic design choices.

The Real Secret to Sabrina Carpenter’s Success

Sabrina knows who she is.

She very likely says “no” constantly to the things that don’t align, and yes or even goes after the things that do.

She understands exactly what her artist persona is.

The strongest brands do.

The weak brands don’t know who they are. They have a loose idea or vague description but no defining core pillars or beliefs. 

Or worse, they think they know who they are but they never exemplify it. 

They feel very one note and flat in their messaging, general instead of niche, or like they’re trying harder to fit in and chase trends rather than stand in their own unique voice and personality.

Great branding is about understanding your identity deeply enough to know what belongs in your world and what doesn’t.

One thing about Sabrina? Not only does she know it, she embodies her identity right to her core.

Looking to discover your own brand identity? I wrote another blog on how to DIY and figure out your own Brand Style!

Want to keep up on more tips about branding, business, marketing and how to improve your website? Follow me on Instagram, Youtube or Pinterest!

And finally, check out my newsletter Aubade Letters sent out every Sunday for weekly inspiration and business and branding tips!