🔗 Share this article

First identified more than 150 years ago on a Pennsylvania oilfield, the humble pot of Vaseline may not seem like an natural focus for social media algorithms.

Yet the brand’s emergence as a viral TikTok topic has positioned it at the vanguard of an advertising revolution, in which large companies are investing heavily in content creators and devoting less capital to promoting products in conventional outlets.

A Journey from Drilling to Digital

First created commercially in the 1870s by a chemist, Robert Cheeseborough, who observed drillers using on their skin with a byproduct of the drilling process. Today, a spree of content from users have chronicled its broad application in “life hacks”.

Promoted as a solution for polishing footwear or prolonging the scent of perfume, and also a remedy for noisy doorways. It has even been deployed to prevent the annoyance of crisp flavouring sticking to fingers.

Harnessing the Hype

Detecting the product’s new life online, executives at the multinational boosted the tips by tasking their in-house experts with verification and letting the content creators in on the results.

Assertions that it diminished the burn from hot food on the lips were confirmed. So too were ideas it could lengthen scent duration and rejuvenate purses. Proposals that it might whiten teeth or lengthen eyelashes were disproven.

The ‘Digital Ear’ Approach

Outdoor advertising and television commercials would once have dominated Unilever’s advertising drive. But the Vaseline phenomenon has led decision-makers to dramatically increase investment in content creators.

This tracking of digital spaces to guide corporate planning has been termed “social listening”. Fernando Fernández, freshly instated, has suggested it is aiming to spend a full fifty percent of its huge ad budget on social media content.

Shifting to Modern Engagement

The company's social media lead, who is heading the digital initiative, said the company was merely adjusting to novel methods of engaging audiences. She said engaging on social media “without dampening the fun” was paramount.

“What is the key to genuine brand integration? That’s always what we’ve been trying to do as brands, dating to when neighbors chatted over fences and discussing household products.

“We are witnessing a departure from a one-to-many model, where we would just send out ads … Now it’s many conversations, various groups. Changes in digital feeds means that these communities feel niche, yet they are vast.

“Ensuring your product is discussed by other people, talked about by other people, that fosters reliability and pertinence. Creators are critical to that. We’re really scaling this advocacy model.”

A Seismic Media Shift

This plan mirrors seismic changes occurring in how media is consumed, with the youth demographic devoting greater hours to apps like TikTok and Instagram than television, magazines or radio.

The transition is visible in declines in TV and print advertising. In the UK, commercial funding for major broadcasters have fallen by more than £600m in inflation-adjusted terms since 2019.

Influencer Marketing Expansion

This further signifies a blurring of media roles as brands effectively act as media producers, linking up with hundreds of content creators to boost their products.

An industry expert from a leading agency said: “Naturally, an exodus of attention out of certain traditional media outlets and they’re spending a lot more time on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube than they are viewing scheduled television or reading physical magazines.

“Numerous corporations inform us audiences believe endorsements from the creators they engage with compared to commercial messages. That’s a consistent trend.”

He added firms may also cut expenditures by focusing on influencers over large-scale legacy ad buys, which also allows them to tweak their content more easily to see what works.

The approach is growing. Advertising spending on the creator economy is increasing four times faster than the media industry overall. Across the United States, it has over doubled since 2021 and is expected to hit multi-billion dollar sums in 2025.

TV's Lasting Role

Regardless of the massive shift, experts said they believed TV advertising still had a prominent role to play, as TV channels continued to possess the influence to frame public debate.

Sykes said: “Among the most effective advertising investments is still major broadcast spectacles. It’s not about those broadcasters saying: ‘We are no longer pertinent.’ It concerns who commands eyeballs … I think there’s 100% a place for them.”