How Brands Are Responding to the TikTok Ban

How The Washington Post, sweetgreen, Topicals, Duolingo, Morning Brew, and more are handling the ban.

Last week my For You Page served me the most wholesome unboxing video I had ever seen. It was documented on Madison Taylor’s account and featured her 92-year-old grandpa Norman unboxing a package from V8 Juice. The video is currently at 5.4M views.

I needed to know the story behind this unconventional unboxing video, so I chatted with the V8 Juice social team. They told me the story actually started back in December, when Madison posted her grandpa’s “daily agenda” which included V8 original and V8 +Energy. They saw that video through social listening (it only has 11K views, so that’s pretty impressive) and commented as a brand but didn’t engage much further.

Then, on April 15th, Madison DM’d V8 Juice to ask if they could send a package to her grandfather to cheer him up after a loss in his family.

“We of course obliged and sent a package and handwritten note on April 18th—this is pretty standard for us across all our brands when we identify a unique brand fan moment or opportunity to surprise and delight,” the V8 Juice team told me.

Then Madison posted the unboxing and it took off.

“Our team truly wanted to gift a care package to a fan and did not plan for any virality or expect an unboxing since we know those are never guaranteed and, truly, a man in his 90s is not the target audience for our social content.”

The V8 Juice team shared the viral video with their team that Monday morning and quickly contacted Madison to see if they could respond to the video in some way. In their communications they realized Norman lived in Philadelphia—”our initial package was sent to Florida, we didn’t know he was a snow bird”—and that he was mere blocks away from members of the V8 Juice social media team. They invited him in to meet IRL. The video of that interaction has over 500k views.

As anyone who reads this newsletter knows, I think brands that lean into their core customer and universal truth tend to perform better on social. When you position yourself on social media in a way that’s so far from the truth of how people engage with your product IRL, it becomes disingenuous.

The V8 Juice team tells me, “Norman more accurately represents our V8 original core audience—the fact that he is also a V8 +Energy fan is unique since there isn’t a lot of overlap in those consumers. Internally, we’ve needed to educate why we are even leaning into a 92-year-old man drinking our product, but for those of us subscribed to your newsletter, we know how following the wave of virality is important for being relevant on the platform. V8 has truly won the hearts of Madison’s millennial/Gen Z audience and as a result, we’ve received an 11% increase in our followers on V8 TikTok. Additionally, many younger commenters speak about purchasing V8+Energy for the first time.”

The V8 Juice team knows this type of viral content isn’t necessarily replicable. They tell me, “We feel this is where social listening comes in—you can’t manufacture this type of authenticity. If anything, this type of viral moment has reinforced the need to be ready when it happens and prepared to act on your feet.”

As for what’s next for Norman and V8 Juice? “Stay tuned—we are working on planning Madison and Norman’s visit to our HQ as promised.”

The Link in Bio Job Board

There are some great new job postings on the Link in Bio Job Board! The Philadelphia Eagles are hiring a Social Media Manager. There are also new roles from sweetgreen, Califia Farms, Away, and Netflix.

How Brands Are Responding to the TikTok Ban

I spoke with social leads at places like sweetgreen, Morning Brew, Duolingo, the Washington Post Universe, Topicals, and more all about their plans now that the TikTok bill has been signed.