Why food brands are so unhinged on social media

Food brands have got to be some of the wildest accounts on social media.

After recently visiting the insanity that is the Nutter Butter account and learning about its cleverly executed strategy – it got me thinking. (Shocking, I know.)

Why are all the food brands so unhinged on social media?

Wendy’s has been a major contender in the bold and brash social strategy game for literal years.

But as I delved deeper into the world of culinary content – I realised they aren’t the only ones who have adopted this approach. Oreo, Burger King, Vita Coco, Arby’s are just a few in a smorgasbord of weird af voices and imagery from food brands on the internet.

And by the looks of it, they’re all in cahoots.

Burger King asks Wendy’s to the prom. Taco Bell and White Castle have a (virtual) food fight. Arby’s posts random images of Zelda.

So is it just a way to cut through the noise? Or indicative of a deeper understanding of brand communication?

In my (humble) opinion, it’s the latter.

In brand world, having a piece of content shared around social media is a humblebrag.

Having a Reddit thread made discussing your content is like taking home the belt.

Traditional advertising is all one-way communication – and brands are very much used to this. You create a perfectly polished ad, put it out to the world, and hope it’s consumed (and that it converts) in the way you intend it.

Social media is obviously not like this. Instead, it’s a place for conversation.

And food brands like these are tapping into those conversations and creating a healthy amount of back and forth with their consumers and other brands.

That’s why, on social media, brands need to take a different tone than their usual squeaky clean traditional personas. Nobody on social media is going to interact with a brand if they have no reason to.

That’s where these weird, bold and often combative brand voices often come from. They're designed to spark interaction.

Like that time Vita Coco pretended to pee in a jar in response to a hater.

On May 16, 2019, a Twitter user Tony Posnanski had no idea what he was getting himself into when he went on an angry tweet rampage about how much he hated coconut water. He @ed Vita Coco and the 'Impossible to Hate' campaign they were running at the time.

The brand responded by saying they would send him some of their products to change his mind. And he told them he would rather drink their social media person's piss than coconut. Verbatim.

A little aggressive. But Vita Coco, cool, calm and apparently hydrated, responded with only a photo of their social media girly in the bathroom stall holding what appeared to be a giant jar of (branded) urine. The caption read, 'address?'

The thread became so popular, Chrissy Teigen engaged, responding 'u deserve it Tony I am proud to have worked with them!!!'

What about the time Burger King, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack and Popeye's got into a twitter fight?

It was that summer that everybody went crazy over the Popeye's infamous chicken sandwich. This craze depleted the restaurant brand's entire supply chain and sold out in eight days US-wide.

Chick-fil-A then posted a pas-ag suggestion that their chicken sandwich was the original. And Popeye's clapped back.

Before long, it turned into the multi-brand #ChickenSandwichWars.

Or how about the 7+ times over the last 8 years that Burger King has trolled McDonald's?

What about the time Denny’s reminded us of our 'overwhelming existential dread, lol'?

Heavy on the lol.

The one thing I’ve noticed is that none of these brands are market leaders, making them challenger brands. Historically, challenger brands like to take more risks. They're more likely to use bold, combative or unconventional tactics to stand out from their giant competitors.

Experimentation like this can drive success for brands on social media. Testing out different types of content that can lead to viral moments. Being playful on social media allows brands to adapt their tone and content to keep up with changing consumer expectations.

Turns out, contrary to popular belief, everybody loves a sarcastic a**hole on social media.

-Sophie, Writer