He’s lap-danced on Satan and twerked naked with cellmates in prison. 

He’s won Grammys, MTV and American Music Awards, was named one of the 25 most influential people on the Internet and is on Forbes’ 30 under 30.

He’s always in on the joke, and he dictates the cultural conversation in a way most brands could never dream of. 

His name is Lil Nas X and this is his masterclass:

Lesson 1. No more matching luggage.

Instead of resizing his album cover to billboard spec, Lil Nas X’s out-of-home played on typical law firm ads. Think ‘Were you in an accident that wasn’t your fault?’ But Black. And queer. 

"Are you single, lonely and miserable?” “Do you miss the real America?” “Gay?” “Do you hate Lil Nas X?” According to the man himself (dressed in one ad as the lawyer persona from the Industry Baby teaser video), you may be entitled to financial compensation. Each billboard then directs viewers to the pre-sale site. WelcomeToMontero.com.

The posters use three of Montero’s distinctive brand assets: blue sky background, font and parody.

Yes, it’s nuts, but Lil Nas has definitely had a sliver of Byron pie.

Lesson 2. Really commit

Sometimes, really good advertising is just a metaphor or turn of phrase taken to its logical, technicolour extreme. Here are some examples:

“People drive like fucking clowns.” Remind you of anything?

“This computer is prehistoric.” Something you might find in a museum perhaps?

If you’re going to dramatise an analogy, take a leaf out of Lil Nas X’s book and go all in. He didn’t just spoon-feed us the same old platitudes about how a first creative project is ‘like a baby’. He posted a sonogram, got a fake baby bump and set up a registry for baby gifts.

As Adam Morgan puts it in Eating the Big Fish: “Commit to the point of absurdism.”

However far you think you need to go for an idea, go further.

Lesson 3. Collide cultures

Montero’s cover art sees Lil Nas X floating in mid air, the sunlight forming a rainbow halo around his butt naked glistening body. 

He followed up on Twitter to reveal the miscellaneous sources of inspiration for the artwork: Spongebob Squarepants (of course), John Stephens’ Genesis ii (I looked this guy up and it looks like he’s legit although you can never really know with Lil Nas) and a verse from the Book of Genesis (yep, that’s the one where God creates the world… and destroys Sodom).

By delving into the gay cultural bible and mingling it with the Christian one, the rapper makes something altogether new. For Nas, this collision of cultures makes for a powerful statement, forcing a public reckoning about what we consider sacred and sacrilegious. 

Brands could also make a statement.

Or they could just have some fun...

Take Amazon. When the internet got a whiff of their latest TikTok ad, people were awed and confused in equal measure.

Why? The ad featured in-game footage from the lego-like Roblox interspersed with clips of a man dancing to Flo Rida and T-Pain’s 2008 Low, but only the part where T-Pain says “Apple Bottom jeans.” Over the top of this, two text-to-speech voices roast each other’s grandmas. Brilliant, absurd, genius. 

Alas, it was a fake. 

But it hints at the kind of madness that is possible when subcultures collide. Just imagine what Dungeons & Dragons meets Y2K could look like…

Lesson 4. Social listening is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Sometimes all you need to do is reshare. 

Lesson 5. Turn perceived weaknesses into strengths

When Lil Nas X won the Video of the Year award at the MTV VMAs, he could have just humbly accepted with a typical thank you speech. 

But this is the MTV Awards. They haven’t always been the most tolerant of stages from A$AP Rocky’s rambling appearance in 2013 to Tyler, The Creator’s. 

So Lil Nas used his speech as an opportunity to tap into a long-running tradition in which LGBTQ+ people reclaim the language used to belittle them, saying “I want to say thank you to the gay agenda! Let’s go, gay agenda!” 

Unknowingly, Lil Nas was following in the footsteps of great brands that have turned perceived weaknesses into strengths. 

Guinness turned the fact that it takes ages to pour into ‘Good things come to those who wait’, Stella turned high price into ‘Reassuringly expensive', Marmite turned the taste of feet into ‘You either love it or hate it’ and Laphroaig turned its infamous kick into ‘It’s like being kicked in the face by a horse that’s been galloping in a peaty bog.’

Lesson 6. Spoof your competitors just right and you will reign supreme.

Drake announces his next album, "Certified Lover Boy," with a reveal of the album's cover art, by Damien Hirst, depicting a series of emojis of pregnant women.

Then, Drake got Lil Nas-ed.

If you’re a challenger brand, throwing some shade with a good dose of meta-parody will almost certainly give you the internet high ground. 

Lesson 7. But could you get away with all this?

Ultimately, Lil Nas X is able to do all this, thrive in a woke-cancel-culture-internet world and maintain his sovereignty over the timeline because all of the parody belies a very serious commitment.

He brought Blackness to the country scene. 

He brought Gayness to the trap scene. 

And that registry he set up for his ‘baby’? The ‘gifts’ came in the form of donations to 16 charities dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ folks and Black communities in the south.

So that’s Lil Nas X’s seventh and final lesson: if you’re lucky enough to have viral powers, use them for good every once in a while.