The song is heavily influenced by early 1990s dance-pop, and has a nu-disco-style beat that resembles the music of the late 1970s.

The Union Jack dress that Geri Halliwell wore during the performance made the front page of various newspapers, and is now remembered as one of the most iconic symbols of Cool Britannia.

A video with the Sugar Lumps—a satirical version of the group—was released to help raise money for charitable causes and donated all the proceedings from the single.

In December 1994, the Spice Girls persuaded their former managers—father-and-son team Bob and Chris Herbert—to set up a showcase in front of industry writers, producers and A&R men at the Nomis Studios in Shepherd's Bush, London.

They played a few of their tracks, but neither Watkins nor Wilson particularly liked them, except for a song the group wrote with Richard Stannard and Matt Rowe, called "Feed Your Love", which the duo thought was "dark and cool".

[4] The songwriting session—held at Absolute's studio located on Tagg's Island near Chertsey—did not seem to go well at the beginning, as the duo was heavily into R&B music at the time, while the group according to Wilson was "always very poptastic".

[5] At this time, the autotune facility was not available and most of the vocals were recorded with few adjustments made afterwards, as Wilson remembers: "Because of the fact we were not using computers, we had to work them very hard.

[8] In the first verse, Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton trade lines in a wry manner,[1] then the chord progression changes to G7–Bm–G7–Bm–G7–F♯m7 during the pre-chorus,[8] which features Melanie Chisholm's vocals prominently.

[8] Then the group sings the bridge, the pre-chorus, and repeats the chorus until the song gradually fades out,[8] while Chisholm adds the high harmony—"Swing it, shake it, move it, make it".

In a review of the group's debut album Spice, Chuck Campbell of the Star-News said it is "a slamming dance song".

[12] Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch criticised the track, referring to it as "a quick blast of vapid fluff".

He also said that "Who Do You Think You Are" was "one of their strongest and underrated songs", adding that it was "proof that the Spice Girls often had more savvy distilling different genres and styles than their American counterparts".

[1] In a review of the group's 2007 compilation album Greatest Hits, Talia Kraines of BBC Music called it "their piece de resistance [...][that] still manages to fill dancefloors".

[16] It debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number one,[17] with sales of 248,000 copies,[18] becoming the group's fourth consecutive chart-topper.

It became the group's third number-one single in Ireland,[23] and peaked inside the top ten in Belgium (both the Flemish and French charts), Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

[31] The music video for "Who Do You Think You Are" was directed in February 1997 by Gregg Masuak, and filmed in a theatre located in the north of London.

[33] It features the Spice Girls singing and dancing solo in front of various colourful backgrounds whilst filmed with a Steadicam.

The video starts with the Sugar Lumps as schoolgirls dreaming of becoming Spice Girls, and ends with them joining the group on stage, while dancing and lip-synching the song.

They started rehearsals a few days after they returned to the UK from a promotional tour in the US, with choreographer Priscilla Samuels, who worked with the group on Fuller's recommendation.

[41] On 24 February 1997, in front of a thousand VIPs at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, the group opened the show with a lip-synched rendition of "Who Do You Think You Are".

[44] In October 1997, the group performed it as the second song of their first live concert at the Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey.

[47][48][49][50] The performance at the Spiceworld Tour's final concert can be found on the video: Spice Girls Live at Wembley Stadium, filmed in London, on 20 September 1998.