metropolitan mermaid
Metropolitan Mermaid was developed as part of my Branded Content course, where each student was assigned to act as a social media brand ambassador for a chosen company and create innovative, engaging content to strengthen its digital identity. I selected Vinted, the secondhand clothing platform, and built a fictional character to embody the brand’s values in a fresh, culturally relevant way.
This project became part of a broader campaign concept titled “The Personality Project” a proposed character-based brand ambassador program designed to humanize Vinted’s voice, restore user trust, and make sustainable fashion feel entertaining, personal, and community-driven.
challenge
Vinted’s content strategy was suffering from low engagement and an impersonal tone, leaning too heavily on transactional seller tips rather than storytelling or personality. The challenge was to reconnect with Gen Z audiences by giving the brand a voice that felt authentic, humorous, and emotionally engaging — one that could build trust and spark conversation around secondhand culture.
process
To bring this idea to life, I created Metropolitan Mermaid — a fictional, satirical brand ambassador and self-proclaimed “washed-up mermaid trying to survive in the city.” The character acts as a symbol of climate anxiety and consumer fatigue, yet uses humor and irony to promote sustainable habits and secondhand fashion.
On Instagram, I developed a content series blending:
Character-driven storytelling and short-form skits
Social commentary on overconsumption and digital identity
Visually stylized posts mixing fantasy, nostalgia, and urban aesthetics
This concept was inspired by modern, personality-driven creators like Lil Miquela and Sabrina Brier, whose content merges fiction, comedy, and social critique to connect with younger audiences.