‘Social listening’: Unilever seeks to capitalise on Vaseline’s TikTok moment

Vaseline has been touted as a remedy for cleaning shoes or prolonging the scent of perfume, and even deployed to stop crisp flavouring sticking to fingers. Photograph: TikTok

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.