Most marketing managers will know that TikTok isn’t just for lip-syncing teens anymore. TikTok has been the fastest growing app in America and the UK for several consecutive months, and brands are adding it to their marketing strategies just as quickly as the app is being downloaded. 

But you don’t have to assign huge budgets to TikTok to get a taste of that sweet viral fame. Heck, sometimes you don’t need to do anything at all, other than have a great product. There have been a number of cases of brands either becoming a viral TikTok trend in their own right, or having their product feature in a video that goes so viral it makes global news. 

Sure, you can’t ever engineer these things. There are no tips on how to 100% be sure of making them happen. Viral hits often come as if from nowhere. But when they happen, attentive brands can learn a lot, and then capitalise to maximise the rewards (though of course, there are some general principles involved if you want to stack your odds of going viral).

Here are three examples of food brands that unexpectedly went viral on TikTok, and how they did it.

Ocean Spray

TikTok can certainly spot a vibe when one is created, and nobody created a vibe quite like Nathan Apodaca, AKA @420doggface208. 

When Apodaca’s car broke down on the way to work, he took to his longboard and created the most serene viral video of 2020. Holding a bottle of Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice in one hand he glides effortlessly down the road, with the sun rising behind him as he lip-syncs to the classic, chilled sounds of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. 

It was a moment that not only took TikTok by storm - with the video gaining over 60 millions views within a few days - but became a huge, accidental advert for Ocean Spray, raised the profile of Fleetwood Mac with Gen Z, and seemingly changed Apodaca’s life.  

Combining the unlikely ingredients of skateboarding, cranberry juice, and a classic jam, Nathan’s “morning vibe” took the internet by storm, growing into a heart-warming moment that spread globally.

It was such a success that a week after his video went viral and hit 100m views, Ocean Spray actually delivered Apodaca a new van, filled with bottles of Cran-Raspberry. 

LITTLE MOONS 

Lockdown boredom got to us all, but a few ice-cream loving TikTokers discovered Little Moons mochi balls in ‘big Tesco’ and told their followers how different and delicious they were. A few of their followers got curious, popped to big Tesco to grab their own, and told their own stories to their own followers. The momentum grew and grew, and before you know it, a dessert-loving flash mob descended over the UK, putting every big Tesco in the land into sold-out status for weeks on end.

And of course, the harder something is to find, the more people want it…

Personally, I knew the Little Moons craze had hit the mainstream when my mum said she had been trying to find some. It was one of the biggest foodie TikTok trends of 2020, becoming so momentous that Little Moons saw a whopping 2000% rise in sales as a result. The (organic) hashtags #littlemoons and #littlemoonsmochi have now both had over 200m views. 

CHIPOTLE

After seeing their brand getting lots of mentions on TikTok, the Chipotle team decided to create an official account. A video Chipotle had previously published on their Instagram account had made it’s way over to TikTok - a clip of an employee flipping a lid over a burrito bowl - and had started to pick up pretty big views. 

A few weeks after launching their account, and just ahead of National Avocado Day, Chipotle ambitiously launched its #GuacDance challenge. The challenge asked TikTokers to film themselves dancing to a popular, avocado-centric meme-song created by children’s musician Dr. Jean. Without a huge following to capitalise on, it is impossible to know if attempted trend-starters, especially from a brand, will gain any traction. And it turned out, fans loved it and over 250,000 videos were submitted in response to the challenge in just six days. 

Chipotle has since gone on to work with some of the biggest TikTok influencers, and had a number of follow-up successes creating trends.