It’s late, and you’ve finished all your homework, so you plop down on your bed and open TikTok. 10 minutes of scrolling can’t hurt, right? After passing a video of a squirrel biting someone’s hand, several cat videos, and a Kim Kardashian rant, you stumble onto FoodTok. FoodTok is a TikTok community of foodies and fellow creators who share everything from recipes to “what I eat in a day” videos. Your stomach grumbles from looking at frozen grapes, tanghulu, and chocolate-covered strawberries, so you get up and decide to try out a recipe you saw.
This is more than just a coincidence. Food marketers are quickly switching to social media as their main advertising, replacing the days of television advertisements.
As we continue to immerse ourselves in the digital age of the 21st century, it’s important to consider how what we watch influences what we eat. Social media food marketers, influencers and the influenced are rapidly changing the world we live in through trends and fads. At some point, you have to wonder: What happens to the people and businesses that have built their lives around these trends when the fads fade?
Food marketing can directly affect the behaviors of consumers. Data from the National Institute of Health (NIH) shows an experiment in which children were shown two sets of advertisements while a bowl of Goldfish crackers were placed before them. One set showcased a plethora of food-based advertisements on social media. The other set focused on advertisements unrelated to food. The results showed that children consumed 45 percent more Goldfish when exposed to food advertising. This proves the effectiveness of advertising through social media, especially with food.
The NIH was not the only one to take note of this fact. Marketers are turning their attention, and their dollars, to social media. According to Forbes, as of 2024, the social media marketing industry is worth about 234.1 billion dollars and is continuing to grow, and for good reason.
You may know the popular drink bubble tea, also called boba, but you likely did not know that much of its success can be attributed to social media marketing. Boba, a combination of tapioca pearls and tea, was invented in the 1980’s. ShareTea, a boba company, has stated that social media development has directly correlated with the popularity of boba.
The pivotal moment in the course of its popularity was the rise of the song “Bobalife” in 2013. University of Michigan Journal of Economics states it was the ‘Bobalife’ song on YouTube that pushed boba into the spotlight. Boba can now be found almost anywhere from a 2023 exhibit in the Chinese-American Museum in Los Angeles to our very own Corte Madera Town Center.
Another snack that has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue, as well as stuck to their teeth, is the Chinese street food tanghulu. Tanghulu has been in China for hundreds of years, but only recently rose to the world stage. Tanghulu was traditionally prepared by dipping skewered hawthorn berries in a mixture of sugar and water at a boiling temperature, creating a hard ‘shell’ that results in a loud cracking noise after the first bite.
Tanghulu first found fame after “celebrities and influencers like Nick DiGiovanni and K-pop idols Tomorrow X Together made tanghulu at home, trying different kinds of tanghulu, and riffing on the treat by candying everything from dragonfruit and watermelon to Takis and raw animal testicles,” according to Bon Appétit. This has resulted in tanghulu being ranked the best frozen and convenience food, as stated by a survey conducted by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation. This popularity has trickled down to our very own students.
Sophomore Devon Stoll-Morill was scrolling through Instagram after school one day when she came across tanghulu for the first time.
“I saw someone dipping their strawberries in the Tanghulu mixture and said, ‘I have to make that!’” Stoll-Morill said.
The next week, she gathered her ingredients and made the popular street snack.
Stoll-Morill also noted the power that Instagram has over her food choices. She remarked upon her connection to social media marketing and her relative lack of interest in other types of advertising.
“If I see a food that looks good on social media, I would be more likely to buy it than if I just saw it in an ad on a bus,” Stoll-Morill said.
Success for a social media marketer has always been centered around one word: “viral;” and nothing has been more viral recently than the Dubai chocolate bar. TikTok user Maria Vehera has over 122.3 million views and 6.7 million likes on her video of trying the viral chocolate bar. This has led to several small businesses popping up and some not-so-small companies like Ghirardelli making their version of the bar.
On March 8, Ghirardelli Square hosted a one-day Dubai chocolate event featuring sundaes based on the original Dubai chocolate bar. Most of the people in line were noticeably younger generations. This event was posted on multiple social media platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
Local small businesses began adapting to social media food trends such as the Dubai chocolate and Swedish candy. The Candy Store, located in San Francisco, sold the social media candies. The owner expressed disapproval over customers coming into her store because they were not buying any products except for the trending ones. Instead of thinking for themselves, they look to social media for validation.
Diane Campbell, the store’s owner, noticed patterns in her customer base coming in for the Dubai bar.
“People just come in there just for the Dubai bar and they aren’t really thinking for themselves and they are trying to stay on the trends,” Campbell said.
These trends on TikTok hurt her small business because she won’t be able to sell the Swedish candy in her store anymore.
When speaking to Campbell about how the social media trends have affected her business, she described how the trendy candies can churn more of a profit, but make the experience seem very transactional.
“People only come in for trendy foods that they see other people buy,” Campbell said.
This can eliminate the small joys of customer interaction and trying something that’s not just a trend. Trends come and go, but Campbell aims to have her candy store be memorable for more than just being a store with Dubai chocolate.
Raina Mae is a college advisor who attended the Ghirardelli event. She stated that she was inspired to come after seeing an advertisement on Instagram for the Dubai chocolate ice cream sundaes.
“I got an ad on Instagram [for the chocolate bar]… and [it made me] want to come and get the sundae,” Mae said.
Upwards of 50 people a day call Diane Campbell’s store asking if they carry Dubai chocolate bars. Even while we were in the store, Campbell received a call from a potential customer inquiring about the chocolate.
When considering the people, businesses and jobs that have been affected by social media food marketing, it’s easy to see the huge impact one post could have on the lives of millions. Before every scroll, consider that the weight of somebody’s life is affected by your eyes on their page. Every food trend that you say “I should make that” to and every like on the latest food fascination could result in the unknowing feeding of culinary social media marketing that is rapidly changing how we buy our food and what we buy.
