TikTok's "Lash Gate," Addressing False Advertising

It’s no shock that the beauty industry has another scandal. The beauty community as a whole is known for its constant drama. This is not limited to false advertising scandals, but also public disagreements between popular creators. These dramas have been so prominent, people who are not interested in the beauty community know about these creators and the drama that ensued. 

Mikayla Nogueira is a 24-year-old creator on TikTok who posts makeup looks, product reviews, and occasionally lifestyle content. She currently has 14.4 million followers and 1.1 billion likes on TikTok. Mikayla has had immense success after quitting her day job at Ulta and committing to full-time content creation. She is generally well-liked on TikTok for being real and she pushes the fact that she is not the “beauty standard.” Mikayla also often talks about her struggles with mental health and body dysmorphia. Mikayla often gets hate for being from Massachusetts and receives a lot of comments about her strong accent. Overall, she hasn’t received an overwhelmingly bad reaction to one of her videos. 

On January 24, 2023, Mikayla had her first big scandal and her video received 54 million views and was all over social media. L'Oréal released a new mascara called Telescopic Lift and in the TikTok Mikayla posted about this mascara, there is a label that says “paid partnership.” Large creators often get backlash for taking paid partnerships even if a product review is clearly genuine. This is because when a company pays for a partnership, the creator will not be entirely truthful about the performance of the product. This has happened time and time again with popular influencers. 

It’s also important to break down the anatomy of this video. The video begins with a stitch of another creator's video showing the real results she received from L'Oréal telescopic Lift mascara. Subsequently, Mikayla appears after the stitch carrying on about how the mascara “Literally just changed [her] life.” She then proceeds to put on one coat of mascara. Then, after she puts on the first coat she says that she's going to put on a second coat. Anyone familiar with mascara, and makeup in general, knows that no mascara can change from the initial coat to the second coat. If you look closely at the video, you can count her natural lashes that cluster together. Those 17 clusters seemingly disappear and lengthen significantly. Which can only be attributed to her putting false lashes on. 

This video had so many people theorizing and talking about how the beauty industry is infiltrated with false advertising. The reaction to this video was mainly about the issue of untruthful advertising within the beauty industry. So much so, the scandal was titled “Lash Gate.” False advertising has been very prominent in the beauty industry for many years. The industry is polluted with photoshop, Facetune, filters, and tools to lie about products to receive money from beauty companies. In the YouTube beauty industry age, this became an issue for many of the popular creators and ultimately led to their stagnancy in success. Many beauty creators just want the money, and neglect being truthful about product reviews.

This impacted the advertising industry and had many questioning the regulations on advertisements/ brand deals.

Social Media Trends that Have Shaped 2022

Each year social media seems to become more involved in everyone’s lives. This year has been full of social media trends that have not only made the internet in 2022 a more complicated place, but also one of the best affordable marketing tools to use. This year social media has brought small content creators and small businesses into the limelight, it has made short-form content an easy marketing tool for all, and made a new career out of live streaming on many platforms.  

This year a new term has been coined in the world of social media platforms. Small creators known as micro-influencers have made a huge impact online. Micro-influencers can be defined as someone on social media with a presence larger than the average person, but not as large as a celebrity. A micro-influencers following can range anywhere from 10,000 to 2,000 followers. Micro-influencers usually run a social media page that specializes in a specific area. For example, a page specifically for DIY, fashion content, gym content, etc. In the world of marketing, companies have really taken advantage of these creators. A company sponsoring a creator who is specifically sharing with the company's target audience makes for easy advertising, for example, a protein powder company wants a popular gym influencer to show off their product in a TikTok or on their Instagram story. Micro-Influencers have become mini-celebrities this year and have made a new and relatable impact online. 

If you haven’t noticed Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have all added a recent feature to their platforms. Short-form content or “reels” are a trend that has been around for years starting with Vine, and has made a resurgence with Tiktok. From just your average person to huge companies, everyone loves using short-form content and reels to market, or to post fun videos. The most recent app to get in on the action is YouTube, which just recently introduced its YouTube shorts feature. Allowing creators to post quick videos that give their audiences a little more insight into their everyday lives. Large companies have been using these features on these apps to market to their audiences in a more relatable and comedic way. These features on apps have made people more drawn to large companies. This trend within apps has really changed the way people produce content, it has become more relatable and real and not so perfectly produced. 

Live-streaming is another trend that has really evolved this year. This has really catered to large influencers, giving them another outlet to interact with their audience. This year live-streaming became not only for gaming creators but for any online creator. The app that has really become the main component in making this happen is Twitch. This streaming platform has all forms of live streaming like ASMR, live makeup tutorials, gaming, or Q&A’s with your favorite influencer. It also doesn't take much skill to live stream, it is an easy way for people to market themselves and their content. Audiences have made this a trend because they enjoy hearing about a person’s life at that moment and seeing what they are experiencing in the present time. 

The social media trends of 2022 have been around for years. What has made them trends that have shaped this year specifically, is the way that they have grown and evolved into trends that cater to anyone and everyone. 

How Advertising Influenced Black Friday

What is Black Friday?

Black Friday is historically the day after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, stores offer exclusive deals to kickstart the holiday shopping. Black Friday originally began the friday after Thanksgiving in the 1950s when people would flood into Philadelphia to watch the annual Army-Navy football game and also do Holiday shopping in the city. It was referred to as Black Friday because it was a day of chaos in the city. Advertisements were created in a surplus knowing an influx of people will be in the city. Therefore, making advertising the creator of Black Friday.

How Black Friday has evolved

Black Friday was created to only be the day after Thanksgiving in which companies offered huge discounts. However, companies have used the traction of holiday shoppers by expanding Black Friday into many days, even weeks after Thanksgiving. Companies advertise Black Friday deals as week long deals, rather than just a one day deal in order to give shoppers more time to participate. As a result of this change, new days such as Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday have been generated. These days offer similar Black Friday deals but extend into deals for the entire Holiday season. 

How advertising changed Black Friday
Advetising has been a fundamental reason for the success of Black Friday. Through TV commercials, social media campaigns, and online advertisements, advertising has been the primary way companies promote their deals. Black Friday advertisements usually start coming out in October in newspapers, retailers websites, online advertisements, and commercials. Advertisements are used across every medium and platform in order to reach the audience and inform them about the Black Friday deals. Advertising today looks a lot different than in the past, with the rise of social media, advertising has shifted to accommodate the audience. Through advertisements placed between posts on the feed and stories, brands are able to interrupt the usual content of who someone is following with recommended products.Through social media advertisements and campaigns, companies use their social media platforms to advertise new products, sales, or just their company in general. The average person spends about 2.5 hours per day scrolling through social media, therefore, giving companies the opportunity to put their advertisements where the customer is. In 2021, shoppers spent $8.9 billion online shopping Black Friday deals, making it the biggest shopping day in America. Advertising is notoriously known for targeting customers on this huge spending day for consumers. Black Friday has been around for over 70 years, however, as times change advertisers must adapt in order to keep up with the growing demand of consumers.

Hurry, it's time to BeReal!

How did a simple social media platform earn the power to get millions of users to drop what they are doing to take a picture?

What is BeReal?

BeReal is a social media app that captured the attention of people all over the world. It was initially released in 2020 by Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau, but its popularity did not grow until early to mid-2022. According to Sensor Tower, in September of 2022, BeReal had around 14.7 million installs, making it a total of over 50 million installs since BeReal was launched.

BeReal is different from many other social media platforms because it encourages people to post unfiltered, more authentic, content. At a different time each day, every user receives a notification that says “Time to BeReal,” and they have two minutes to post a picture of what they are doing at that time. The app takes a picture with both the front and back camera, and there is not much time to get ready once you start. The app does allow you to retake your pictures as many times as you would like within the two minutes, but when posted, it will show everyone how many retakes you took.

Once you post, you can look at everyone else’s posts to see what they are doing. BeReal also gives you the opportunity to comment and/or react to other people’s posts, by taking a picture of yourself making a face as a reaction. These are called “RealMojis,” and they can be viewed by anyone on BeReal who has access to that person’s post. 

What happens if you don’t post in time?

If you do not post within the two minute time limit you are still able to post. When this happens, anyone who follows you will receive a notification on their phone that says you posted late. This encourages people to keep going back to the app to see what more of their friends are doing. Each BeReal will have a time stamp on it, which can be viewed by holding down the picture. If you post late, the picture will show how many seconds or minutes late it was posted.

So what makes BeReal so popular?

Today, so many people are glued to their phones. The BeReal alert goes off at a different time every day, so users are always waiting to see when the notification will pop up on their phones.  Social media usage is one of the main ways friends communicate and share what is going on in their lives. However, most platforms allow you to apply filters and only post what you want others to see. With BeReal, there are no filters involved and you cannot edit the photos after taking them. 

With so many people on social media, people are always interested in what their friends are doing and where they are at. This app allows people to do just that. 

Could BeReal get old?

Even though BeReal has grown very popular, the app does not call for more activity once you post. The app’s simplicity may seem like it would get old, but so many people still eagerly await the BeReal alert each day. For the time being, BeReal does not seem like there will be much more that is added to it, but it will be interesting to see if the app’s activity will remain steady, or eventually decrease because of this.

BeReal continues to grow rapidly all around the world and each day users are excited to show off what they are doing and to see what their friends are doing. Overall, it is both fascinating and scary when you really think about how this app has been able to influence so many people at once. It has gained the power to get everyone on the app to do something at the same time every day, and each day its users continue to feel the urgent need to post once the notification pops up on their screens.

Clever Halloween Advertising

Though Halloween can be regarded as the start of the holiday season, it ranks number ten according to Statista, however, some of the most memorable advertising campaigns are remembered from the so-called “spooky season.”  The Halloween bucket that replaced Happy Meals at McDonald’s, the whole of “Monstober” on The Disney Channel, and many more amazing marketing campaigns have stuck with us since childhood. That being said, some of the most ingenious campaigns come from more recent times. 

Stranger Things is an incredibly popular TV show that premiered on Netflix in 2016. Its first season was received with stellar reviews, and its second season was even more anticipated than the first. In order to drum up potential viewers, Netflix worked with a retailer in London to create an in-person experience. The retailer redesigned its storefront to create many iconic sets from the show and had branded merchandise that people could purchase. This experience would not be the last of its kind, as many pop-up “Stranger Things” experiences have popped up more and more as the show gained even more popularity.

Though the marketing tactic described above was amazing, one of the more “spooky” tactics that occurred due to advertising was all because of an advertising campaign constructed by Burger King in order to rival its competitor. In a creative way to increase the number of customers, Burger King said that if customers came into a Burger King establishment dressed as a clown on Halloween, they would be eligible to receive a free burger. With a clear jab at McDonalds, the clown themed promotion proved to be a success increasing “its sales worldwide by 15%” (Urrutia). 

This success story of Burger King and Netflix is just a couple of creative tactics used by companies to increase business around Halloween. One of the most popular candy brands, M&Ms, has its own story to tell when it released an interactive game for consumers to be puzzled by. The game that was released was an interactive online art piece that was filled with riddles and puzzles that revealed different cameos from many different, classic horror movies. The campaign was aimed at triggering people’s critical thinking and rose to popularity due to the announcement of the dark chocolate version of the popular candy being made permanent in the brand’s product line (Arica). To this day, if you google “how to’s'' on the game, many different results and step by step guides will lead you in the process of finding every easter egg.

Halloween is a very popular holiday, and many companies use that as a way to garner business to their company. Due to this onslaught of different advertising and marketing campaigns, many businesses have had to be creative in the ways they promote their products, resulting in horrifyingly, amazing advertising promotions that will stand the test of time and be stuck with us for many more spooky years to come.

The Downfall of Instagram

Anyone that has had Instagram downloaded for some time, knows that the app has undergone and continues to undergo major changes within its structure. With nearly 3.8 billion downloads, Instagram is one of the most prevalent forms of social media today. Recently, many users have become frustrated with Instagram's new formatting. By 2025, Instagram will almost certainly be on an irreversible negative-growth trajectory. So much so, that some users have gone as far to petition against how different Instagram has become.

     When Instagram first hit the app store on October 6th of 2010, it was an app that gave users the ability to take and share photos quickly. The idea behind the name “Instagram '' is a portmanteau of the words “instant camera” and “telegram.” The intention behind the initial release of the app was for people to be able to build community by being able to easily share photos of their lives and experiences. The app’s launch into popularity depended on people's relationships and connections to one another. 

     Within the past few years, Instagram has implemented tools to where it makes it easy for content creators or businesses to monetize content and post content related to business. The first big move towards this formatting of Instagram took place on May 31st, of 2016. This was the end of the reverse-chronological feed that so many Instagram users were so fond of. The introduction of a curated feed according to the user's personalized interests came to fruition. People have become increasingly frustrated with this feature due to missing friends’ and family’s posts on their feeds. The 2016 Instagram update also gave users the opportunity to designate their account as a business or creator profile, have access to analytics, and promote their posts. This was a game changer for those who wanted to monetize or promote content on social media. To the regular user, this hindered their experience using the app. Instagram has become an app that is less and less welcoming to those who want a casual form of social media. Instagram has become more about likes, shares, saves, and reposts rather than simply posting a photo.      

     In reaction to the changes to Instagram, many online articles have advice on keeping your post from being lost or hidden in the algorithm.  According to socialsprout, the most important factors to beating the Instagram algorithm are “timeliness, relationship, frequency, following, and usage.” Frequency is arguably the most important of all of the ways to beat the Instagram algorithm. Posting frequently allows posts to appear in people’s feeds more often, which in turn allows for more interaction with accounts. Another important factor in beating the algorithm on Instagram is interacting with other accounts. This means liking and commenting on other users' posts consistently. As for following, the more accounts you follow the less content from desired accounts you will see. Lastly, the more time you spend on the app the more you will see people's posts.  

     Unfortunately, the app has no plans of returning to its initial formatting but for regular Instagram users, there are ways to slightly “hack” the algorithm. Instagram users need to accept that it’s simply a different app than it was 5 years ago. The app has proven to be ever changing. 

Taylor Swift's Genius Marketing

Taylor Swift recently announced the release of her new album “Midnights.” Swift has had a unique way of advertising for her most recent releases and re-releases in that she doesn’t do any advertising. She is so famous now that her lack of advertising only encourages her fans, “Swifties,” to talk even more about her upcoming projects and create conspiracy theories based on the hints she leaves in posts on her Instagram and the occasional TikToks that she posts. 

With the abundance of advertising in everyday life, consumers are bombarded with so many messages they can’t remember everything they see or hear. Swift has chosen the opposite approach by leaving her listeners to their own devices and theorizing what activities she has in the works. She relies mostly on earned media to promote her music and this is very successful for her with the hashtag #taylorswifttheory being used 11.8 million times on TikTok.

Swift also makes her public appearances very sparse, so when she goes to an award show or gets caught by the paparazzi it feels preplanned and like it has an underlying message to it. She recently attended the VMA’s and used it as a form of free promotion to announce “Midnights.” Besides the normal cost of attending an event, this was the best form of publicity Swift could get with the event amassing 3.9 million viewers according to Billboard. 

With the most recent rerelease of Swift’s rerecorded album, Red, one of her music videos garnered a lot of attention online from the use of color and supposed hidden numbers throughout the video. In the music video, I Bet You Think About Me it was theorized that a scene where she’s sitting at the kids’ table and pulls a rabbit out of a hat it was alluding to Alice in Wonderland. It was then connected to Harry Styles’ tour “Love on Tour” because his merchandise had two rabbits on it. In the same video, a wedding cake was said to hold many hidden messages. On the top tier of the wedding cake, the numbers 13 and 26 were scattered over the surface. It’s well known that Taylor Swift’s favorite number is 13 and the song I Bet You Think About Me is number 26 on the track, so those could be simple explanations. Fans also theorized that Swift would announce a new project on November 26th since the music video was released on November 15th. Another cake theory was when Swift had taken two fingers and dragged them into the cake to unveil the red cake on the inside. This motion formed what looked like an equal sign. Since Swift is friends with Ed Sheeran, fans predicted this could also hint at a new collaboration between Swift and Sheeran because of Sheeran’s most recent album “=.” There were many more “easter eggs” that Swift put in the music video and Popsugar does a good overview of a lot of them.

Very few people or brands can successfully employ this advertising campaign as Swift does. It takes a lot of skill, a popular product, or a good campaign to get to the point of no campaign. This music video gave Swift more publicity than potentially any campaign would have. This shows the success of Swift’s career and it’s very promising for her continued longevity as a singer.

Did you do the Wordle today?

Written by: Abby Young

What started as a game for his wife, Brooklyn native Josh Wardle has watched his small project become a worldwide phenomenon. Although brief, the history of Wordle has affected every days’ puzzle and the success of Wardle and his family.

What’s Wordle?

Software engineer Josh Wardle created Wordle for his partner, Palak Shah, who simply wanted a new challenge in the word games she loved during the pandemic. Wardle decided to take this on as his own project, researching 5-letter words and then filtering through which words Shah knew. After getting rid of every word that was too difficult to guess or a variant of another word (plurals, past tense, etc.), Wardle had a complete word list to make his game from. The final step was the name creation, which pays tribute to the creator’s last name. 

Success for Wardle’s Wordle 

After the creation of the game, the couple played together and sent their results to their family group chat, which hooked their entire extended families. As the group’s excitement for one new word every day increased, Wardle decided to open the game for public use in October, 2021. Word of mouth and the communication of the Internet moved quickly, gaining around 300,000 players per day by January, 2022. The impressive factor in this is the lack of advertisement. There was no formal ad campaign, branding, or invitation from Wardle or any affiliates. He simply created the game to give some fun to his partner.. and thousands of others. The Internet traction prompted buyers to enter the market, eventually being sold to the New York Times.  

What’s next?  

Wardle has been intentional about making the game as accessible and casual as possible. He has been clear about not wanting to monetize Wordle, and has been disappointed to see others making money off of an idea that was intended to be exciting and communal. The social aspect of the game continues through social media and other online platforms, still with no hint of advertisement or campaign. The lack of monetary entry to the game or financial advancement of it has left players continuously content with the flow and environment. Although the New York Times has recently bought the rights and online domain, they shouldn’t  try to capitalize on the growth and sustaining popularity. People will continue to be in virtual Wordle groups, send their families their daily spread, and be hopeful to see if they can get tomorrow’s Wordle in under 6 guesses. 

TikTok Made Me Buy It: Dyson Air Wrap

Written By: Ella Orlie

What is the Dyson Air Wrap?

The Dyson Air wrap has quickly become one of the most talked-about hair products all over social media. Dyson has been well known for years for the powerful and great quality products that they provide. Many people contemplate if their products are worth the money, and most would say they are well worth it. They have vacuums, fans, heaters, and now they made a bold step to enter the beauty industry. They came out with the “Super Sonic Hairdryer” in 2016 which starts at $400. In 2018, Dyson began to change the face of how to style your hair.

The air wrap is a hot tool that is used for people seeking less heat damage and efficiency with multiple attachments. It uses the Coanda effect, which is when air is propelled at the right speed and pressure, the hair naturally will wrap around it.

In 2020, Allure released an article stating that it is the “best of beauty products.” People are constantly raving about the volume, the simplicity, and the unique technology that it has. It talked about for both positive and negative reasons, the quality and the price. The question that most people are trying to figure out is if the quality is worth the $500 credit card swipe?

Social Media Platforms

The main outlets where the airwrap has hit social media the strongest are Tik Tok and Instagram. The first time the air wrap made an appearance, it flooded social media and quickly became a want for many people, but not something that was necessiarilly possible for many to afford. Many Tik Tok and Instagram influencers buy or receive the air wrap and give reviews on how well it actually works. They show “how to” videos and highlight the pros and cons of the product. For most, it gives the look of a professionally blown-out hairdo without the normal damage that a curling iron, straightener, or blow dryer typically would do to hair. Yetagain, Tik Tok has caused the dyson airwrap to sell out on multiple occasions because people want to see for themselves. Social media continues to have such a power effect on businesses and consumers. Even though this product is $500, it still falls into the category of “Tik Tok made me try it.”

The Rise of Crumbl Cookies

Written By: Alyssa Polnac

Crumbl Cookies was founded in 2017 by Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley and since then, the company has grown rapidly all across the nation. Today, there are over 300 bakeries in the United States. Crumbl is unique in its business and attracts customers with its weekly rotating menu and iconic pink box.

Crumbl is very popular among my friend group and some are even willing to drive an hour and a half to the nearest one, just to drive another hour and a half back. Clearly, Crumbl’s decisions in the way it chooses to advertise its products work for its customers since people feel like it is worth to drive a total of three hours for some cookies. In addition, Crumbl creates a fun and unique environment where customers can interact and communicate with each other, and the business, which increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Social Media

Crumbl decided to use social media as its main platform for advertising and customer awareness. Originally, the focus was on Instagram, but after joining TikTok, Crumbl shifted its focus and created the #crumblreview. Crumbl currently has 1.8 million followers on Instagram and 4.2 million followers on TikTok. Obviously, the use of TikTok has a better success rate with the current generations and Crumbl’s target market.

On TikTok and Instagram, Crumbl posts the weekly flavors, icing tips, and other slow motion videos that leave customers wanting more. The #crumblreview allows people to review their experience with Crumbl so that the company can improve and increase customer involvement. Since social media is a major source of information that people use today, this is a great way for Crumbl’s name to be spread throughout the country and for sales to increase.

Iconic Attributes

One thing that Crumbl has done that attracts customers is its rotating menu. In December of 2018, the company officially decided to create a rotating menu that includes four or five specialty flavors each week that customers could choose from, while always serving its warm Milk Chocolate Chip and chilled Classic Pink Sugar cookies. This business strategy is effective because it creates the habit of loyal customers checking each week to see what the flavors are, which then grabs their attention, and finally makes them want to go buy cookies.

The pink box is iconic because of its unique shape, size, and color. The size of the boxes allows the cookies to fit perfectly side-by-side in the packaging. These characteristics make it something that people will know and associate with Crumbl’s business. It also creates the perfect aesthetic for Instagram and TikTok!

As Crumbl’s popularity continues to grow, it seems to be doing well in paying attention to what works and does not work for the company, as well as what social media can do to increase overall sales. Crumbl has many unique characteristics and iconic attributes, like the weekly rotating menu and the large pink box that sets it apart from other cookie companies, which makes for a successful business platform. 

Avocados from Mexico Commercial had more cons than pros

Written By: Hannah Stedman

While the Super Bowl always has intriguing commercials, one specific commercial got some online criticism for being poorly timed. The “Avocados From Mexico” commercial aired on Sunday just a few days after there was an indefinite ban placed on avocado imports from Mexico.

After a U.S. safety inspector working in Mexico received a verbal threat through a phone call, all imports of avocados were banned until the safety of the U.S. employee was guaranteed. This ban hurt a lot of avocado farmers in the state of Michoacán and it will likely have a huge impact on their local economy according to the New York Times

As of today, the ban has been lifted and the U.S. will begin accepting imports of avocados from Mexico.

It was too late to pull the commercial after the ban was set in place so the commercial ran regardless of the trade situation. The concept of the commercial was humorous, depicting a tailgate set in ancient Rome and the main food attraction being avocados. But, there were valid criticisms about the timing and casting. Many people took to Twitter to express their concerns stating how it was a “bad time” given the current climate and calling out the company for not pulling the commercial. Casting was also a point of contingency because there were no Mexicans cast in the commercial. One Twitter user noted that the inventor of Caesar salad was Hispanic, but was cast as a white man. 

Brands have been including more representation in their commercials and it has been appreciated by all consumers. It was surprising that a brand that represents another country does not have diversity in its casting. It is slowly becoming the new standard to have inclusive casting and now it is becoming more uncommon to have an all white cast. Especially when airing a commercial for the first time during the Super Bowl, there will be more eyes watching and criticizing than normal, so you want your commercial to be the best it can be and the least  controversial. 

It was bad timing all around for Avocados From Mexico this year, but hopefully, with the lift of the ban, they will have a successful 2022.

The Lovely Impact of Valentine’s Day Targeted Advertising

Written by: Rinni Finley

If you look at any major social media platform in the weeks preceding February 14th, your feed will most likely be sprinkled with a variety of red, pink, and heart-filled advertisements. Valentine’s Day is one of the most marketed days of the year when it comes to purchasing gifts. According to statista.com, the United States is projected to have over $23.9 billion spent on Valentine’s gifts, flowers, and cards. That being said, it is an extremely important opportunity for businesses to use Valentine’s Day to advertise their products and services.

As far as the audiences of the advertisements, even those who know their partner extremely well can still benefit from ideas and gift guides here and there. In our current times, these ideas and gift guides largely stem from social media. Not only in the sense of advertisements but just with inspiration gained from following other people’s content. When it comes to the advertisements, Forbes conducted a study regarding shopping via social media ads and the numbers are fantastic. Their study showed that two-thirds of people shopping do some type of shopping through their social media. To be more accurate, 23% of the baby boomer generation and a whopping 77% of millennials and gen z’s use social media to shop. Businesses have definitely noticed these upward trends and have used them to their advantage. 

One of the companies that has been able to use social media to not only advertise in general, but for V-day specifically, is Target. Target has used Instagram to post videos from shoppers of them buying products from Target’s V-day line. This is a great strategy to show other customers a real example of someone shopping for and buying their holiday-specific products. On top of this, Target made a #TargetDate filter that anyone can use. The filter puts a box of date ideas that one can do either at or with things they get at Target, and eventually, the filter stops and you’re able to see one random date that the filter has landed on, that being the one you are supposed to do. Target has even posted videos from people who have used the filter and then actually gone to a Target store to complete the date the filter gave them. With these advertisements, Target is not only reminding those that see the ads that Valentine’s is coming up soon, but also advertising their products with a special twist that will encourage more consumers to use Target as their shopping destination for all things Valentine.

Many times, social media advertisements that are specifically targeted to Valentine’s Day shoppers are from companies that already use social media to advertise their products or services regularly. I have personally been able to see a shift in the advertisements I see from specific companies on a regular basis making the transition to those heart-themed graphics or products. One of the notable companies that seem to have a heavy influence in the social media advertising world is the clothing store Cider. Cider has had ads popping up in my feed and in my stories on Instagram for nearly a year, however, now they are themed around Valentine’s Day. While I am not shopping for gifts for someone for Valentine’s Day, I was wanting to wear a fun outfit that is themed around the holiday. Therefore, having these ads from Cider gave me more ideas and inspiration of what to buy, as well as a newfound interest in their products altogether. Companies are then able to use social media advertisements in partnership with the Valentine’s Day holiday to further promote their business, not only for holidays, but for future purchases as well; whether that be someone seeing the ads and thinking of that someone special or looking to treat themselves. Valentine’s Day advertising campaigns, especially through social platforms, are the way to win for businesses right now. Companies will gain more customers and increase the loyalty of their returning customers, all while providing fun and different advertising from their typical avenues. There are a plethora of advantages to using Valentine’s Day as a concept for ads, but above all, the ability to influence consumers across social media platforms into purchasing their products and becoming consistent customers.