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Originally found more than 150 years ago within a Pennsylvania drilling site, the simple jar of Vaseline may not seem like an obvious target for social media algorithms.

Yet the brand’s emergence as a viral TikTok topic has thrust it into the lead of an promotional upheaval, seeing big businesses spending big on content creators and reducing expenditure on marketing items in conventional outlets.

From Oil Rigs to Online Hacks

First created commercially in the 1870s by scientist Robert Cheeseborough, who noticed oil rig workers applying to their skin with a byproduct of the drilling process. Today, a spree of user-generated videos have documented the product’s widespread use in “practical tricks”.

It has been touted as a fix for dirty sneakers or making fragrance last longer, along with a cure for squeaky doors. It has even been deployed to combat the nuisance of chip seasoning clinging to fingers.

Harnessing the Hype

Spotting its digital renaissance, marketers at Unilever enhanced the tricks by having their research teams evaluate the claims and providing creators with the outcome data.

Suggestions that it lessened the sensation of spicy food on lips were confirmed. Similarly supported were ideas it could extend fragrance and rejuvenate purses. Suggestions it could bleach teeth or lengthen eyelashes were disproven.

The ‘Digital Ear’ Approach

Billboards and TV ads would once have been the cornerstone of its marketing push. However, this online trend has helped convince executives to turbocharge spending on content creators.

This tracking of digital spaces to guide corporate planning has been labeled “social listening”. Unilever's CEO, newly named, has stated the intention is to spend a full fifty percent of its huge ad budget on platform-based material.

Shifting to Modern Engagement

The company's social media lead, who is heading the digital initiative, said the company was just evolving with contemporary approaches of reaching consumers. She said participating on platforms “without spoiling the atmosphere” was essential.

“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 sharing usage tips.

“We are witnessing a departure from a mass communication approach, where we would just broadcast out … Currently, it's countless discussions, diverse communities. The shift of the algorithms means that these communities feel niche, but they’re not.

“Ensuring your product is discussed by users, talked about by other people, that is how you can build trust and relevance. Creators are critical to that. We’re really scaling this advocacy model.”

A Fundamental Consumption Turn

The strategy reflects dramatic transformations taking place in media consumption, with the youth demographic devoting greater hours to apps like TikTok and Instagram than legacy broadcast and print media.

The shift is reflected in declines in traditional media advertising. In the UK, advertising income for leading TV channels have declined by over six hundred million pounds in real terms since 2019.

Influencer Marketing Expansion

It also reflects a blurring of media roles as large companies almost become production houses themselves, linking up with hundreds of content creators to enhance their items.

An industry expert from a leading agency said: “Obviously there’s a flow of audiences out of certain traditional media outlets and they’re spending a lot more time on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube than they are consuming linear broadcasts or printed matter.

“Many companies report to us audiences believe endorsements from the creators they engage with compared to commercial messages. This is a persistent pattern.”

He added firms may also cut expenditures by targeting content creators over large-scale legacy ad buys, which also allows them to tweak their content more easily to gauge performance.

The approach is growing. Marketing investment on influencer marketing is rising at quadruple the rate than total media spending. Stateside, it has over doubled since 2021 and is expected to hit tens of billions in 2025.

The Enduring Power of Broadcast

Even with this transformation, executives said they believed television commercials still played a key part 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 major broadcast spectacles. It’s not about those broadcasters saying: ‘Our relevance has faded.’ The focus is on who seizes focus … I think there’s 100% a place for them.”