Inside Unilever's Plan to Make Vaseline TikTok Famous

"As a product discovered more than 150 years ago on a Pennsylvania oilfield, the humble pot of Vaseline may not seem like an obvious target for social media algorithms. Yet the brand's emergence as a TikTok talking point has placed it at the forefront of an advertising revolution, in which large companies are spending big on content creators and putting fewer resources into promoting products in traditional media."

"The petroleum jelly was first manufactured in the 1870s by a chemist, Robert Chesebrough, who noticed oil rig workers rubbing their skin with a byproduct of the drilling process. Today, a spree of user-generated videos have documented the product's widespread use in "life hacks". It has been touted as a remedy for cleaning shoes or prolonging the scent of perfume, as well as a fix for squeaky doors."

"Detecting the product's new life online, marketers at Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns the brand, amplified the hacks by asking their own scientists to test them and letting the content creators in on the results. Claims that Vaseline reduced the sensation of spicy food on lips, prolonged perfume and restored leather handbags were all given the thumbs up. Suggestions it could whiten teeth or lengthen eyelashes were debunked."

Vaseline gained renewed popularity on TikTok through user-generated "life hacks" demonstrating varied household uses, from cleaning shoes to prolonging perfume and fixing squeaky doors. Unilever monitored the trend, asked its scientists to test popular claims, and shared results with content creators. Several uses, such as reducing spicy sensation on lips and restoring leather, were validated while cosmetic claims like whitening teeth were debunked. The phenomenon encouraged a strategic shift away from traditional billboards and TV toward heavy investment in creators and social media. Unilever's leadership has signaled an aim to allocate a large portion of advertising budgets to social content driven by social listening.

Read at The Business of Fashion