‘Social Listening’: Unilever Aims to Harness Vaseline’s TikTok Moment.

First identified more than 150 years ago in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, the modest tin of Vaseline could hardly be considered an clear candidate for online content feeds.

However, its rise as a popular subject on TikTok has placed it at the forefront of an advertising revolution, where major corporations are spending big on content creators and devoting less capital to marketing items in traditional media.

A Journey from Drilling to Digital

The petroleum jelly was first manufactured in the 1870s by a chemist, Robert Cheeseborough, who saw laborers rubbing their skin with a derivative of drilling. Currently, a wave of content from users have recorded its extensive utilization in “practical tricks”.

Hailed as a solution for polishing footwear or extending perfume longevity, and also a remedy for noisy doorways. Its use has even extended to combat the nuisance of crisp flavouring sticking to fingers.

Leveraging the Buzz

Detecting the product’s new life online, executives at the multinational enhanced the tricks by having their research teams evaluate the claims and letting the content creators in on the results.

Suggestions that it lessened the sting of chili on the mouth were validated. Similarly supported were ideas it could prolong perfume and rejuvenate purses. Proposals that it might whiten teeth or lengthen eyelashes were debunked.

The ‘Social Listening’ Strategy

Billboards and TV ads would once have formed the bulk of its promotional efforts. 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 termed “social listening”. The company's chief executive, newly named, has suggested it is aiming to spend a full fifty percent of its huge ad budget on social media content.

Evolving With Audience Behavior

Selina Sykes, who is leading the online push, said the company was merely adjusting to novel methods of reaching consumers. She said engaging on social media “without spoiling the atmosphere” was paramount.

“How do brands authentically become part of the conversation? This has perpetually been our aim as brands, back to when people were hanging out their laundry and discussing household products.

“There’s this moving away from a broadcast model, where we would just broadcast out … Today, it's numerous dialogues, many communities. The evolution of platform algorithms means that these audiences appear specific, yet they are vast.

“Having your brand advocated by other people, recommended by peers, that fosters reliability and pertinence. Content makers are key. We’re really scaling this advocacy model.”

A Seismic Media Shift

This plan mirrors seismic changes happening in audience habits, with the youth demographic spending more time on apps like TikTok and Instagram than television, magazines or radio.

The shift is reflected in declines in traditional media advertising. In the UK, commercial funding for leading TV channels have declined by over six hundred million pounds in actual value since the end of the last decade.

The Rise of the Creator Economy

This further signifies a merging of functions as large companies almost become production houses themselves, collaborating with a multitude of digital creators to boost their products.

Leon Harlow said: “Obviously there’s a flow of audiences away from some legacy media and they are dedicating far more hours to social platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube than they are consuming linear broadcasts or printed matter.

“Many companies report to us people trust recommendations from the personalities they subscribe to more than they trust ads. That’s a consistent trend.”

He added firms may also cut expenditures by focusing on influencers over expensive broadcast campaigns, which also enables easier content adjustment to see what works.

This strategy is expanding. Marketing investment on digital creator partnerships is growing fourfold quicker than total media spending. In the US, it has more than doubled since 2021 and is expected to hit substantial figures in 2025.

The Enduring Power of Broadcast

Even with this transformation, experts said they believed broadcast ads retained significant importance to play, as TV channels continued to possess the influence to shape the national conversation.

The executive noted: “A top-tier ROI marketing event is still major broadcast spectacles. It’s not about those broadcasters saying: ‘We are no longer pertinent.’ It concerns who commands eyeballs … I believe there is absolutely a role for them.”