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First identified more than 150 years ago within a Pennsylvania drilling site, the modest tin of Vaseline could hardly be considered an clear candidate for social media algorithms.

Yet the brand’s emergence as a viral TikTok topic has positioned it at the vanguard of an marketing transformation, where major corporations are spending big on content creators and reducing expenditure on marketing items in traditional media.

The Path from Petroleum to Platforms

Originally produced in the 1870s by scientist Robert Cheeseborough, who observed drillers applying to their skin with a derivative of drilling. Currently, a wave of amateur-created clips have documented the product’s widespread use in “everyday tips”.

Promoted as a remedy for cleaning shoes or extending perfume longevity, as well as a fix for noisy doorways. Users have even applied it to prevent the annoyance of snack dust adhering to hands.

Harnessing the Hype

Noticing its viral resurgence, marketers at Unilever boosted the tips by asking their own scientists to test them and sharing the findings with influencers.

Suggestions that it lessened the burn from hot food on the lips were given the thumbs up. This was also the case for ideas it could prolong perfume and rejuvenate purses. Suggestions it could whiten teeth or extend lashes were debunked.

The ‘Digital Ear’ Approach

Outdoor advertising and television commercials would once have dominated Unilever’s advertising drive. But the Vaseline phenomenon has helped convince executives to turbocharge spending on content creators.

This monitoring of online platforms to inform business strategy has been termed “social listening”. Fernando Fernández, recently appointed, has stated the intention is to spend half of its colossal advertising budget on platform-based material.

Evolving With Audience Behavior

A leading Unilever executive, who is spearheading the social media effort, said the company was just evolving with contemporary approaches of reaching consumers. She said interacting online “without killing the party” was paramount.

“How can companies join discussions credibly? That’s always what we’ve been trying to do as brands, since the era of community gossip and talking about what they used.

“There’s this moving away from a broadcast model, where we would just send out ads … Currently, it's countless discussions, diverse communities. The evolution of platform algorithms means that these communities feel niche, but they’re not.

“Ensuring your product is discussed by users, mentioned by individuals, that fosters reliability and pertinence. Creators are critical to that. This word-of-mouth strategy is being amplified.”

A Fundamental Consumption Turn

The strategy reflects seismic changes occurring in how media is consumed, with the youth demographic spending more time on digital networks than traditional TV, print, or radio.

This change is evidenced by falling revenues for broadcast and newspaper ads. In the UK, advertising income for primary networks have declined by over six hundred million pounds in actual value since the end of the last decade.

Influencer Marketing Expansion

This further signifies a blurring of media roles as brands effectively act as media producers, linking up with a multitude of digital creators to enhance their items.

A commercial director at a major talent agency said: “Obviously there’s a flow of audiences out of certain traditional media outlets and their time is increasingly on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube than they are consuming linear broadcasts or printed matter.

“A lot of brands are telling us audiences believe endorsements from the personalities they subscribe to more than they trust ads. That’s a consistent trend.”

He said brands could also save money by investing in creators over big traditional media campaigns, which also allows them to tweak their content more easily to see what works.

The approach is growing. Advertising spending on digital creator partnerships is rising at quadruple the rate than the broader media sector. Stateside, it has more than doubled since 2021 and is projected to reach tens of billions in 2025.

The Enduring Power of Broadcast

Regardless of the massive shift, experts said they believed TV advertising still had a prominent role to play, as networks still held the capability to frame public debate.

The executive noted: “One of the highest return-on-investment media opportunities is still the Super Bowl. 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.”