Trend Highlight
IT’S CORN!!!
Hopefully, you’ve already seen this adorable lil dude singing about corn but if not, we wanted to be the ones to share this viral vid with you. For us sad millennials the autotune is giving the Bed Intruder Song x I Like Turtles and it’s HEARTWARMING (and also an absolute banger, odds Diplo will be playing the remix @ his next Mykonos set):
This Week at ViralMoment
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Trendsetter Spotlight
Hot dog → haute couture.
Apparently there is such a thing as running the $1-hot-dog-to-fashion-house-gauntlet? Costco, the home of the $4.99 inflation-resistant rotisserie chicken, has become an unlikely frontrunner for fashionista finds.
One of the leaders of the movement is Jennifer Maldonado (@CostcoCouture) who has amassed upwards of 670,000 views on a video sharing a deal for a pair of Hunter boots sold at just about 50% off retail. For Maldonado, it’s all about hunting for deals from higher-end brands that are known for their reliable product quality.
“A lot of my clothes that I wear I get compliments on every single day. And I always say it's from Costco, and I get the same response - like, a blank look on their face. Like, really - Costco? Heck yeah.”
Ok, it’s no secret that with a r*cession looming, more folks are gonna be ballin’ on a budget. Affordability and convenience have always been Costco’s claims to fame – in-store and online. But what’s with the sudden shift to fashion and social commerce?
Well, here are some more quick (Costco-specific) stats:
Search term “Costco clothing finds”: 2+ billion views
Hashtag #costcofashion: 5.6+ million views
Hashtag #costcocouture: 5+ million views
Hashtag #costcoclothes: 4+ million views
And as much as we love Maldonado’s energy, we ~doubt~ Costco didn’t have any say in this.
Stir the Pot
Father, son, and house of Costco.
The reasoning? Not only are younger people shopping online (think: digital storefronts, traditional e-commerce) more often, but they are steadily gravitating towards shopping on social media platforms directly.
Social commerce comfort levels – which in straightforward terms just means how comfy various age groups are with shopping experiences that occur directly on a social media platform – have risen amongst younger generations.
AdAge quotes a report from CM Group:
“When it comes to driving sales, a post in social media, closely followed by social media advertising, is comfortably the preferred channels for Gen Z and Millennials for receiving offers, content, incentives and rewards from brands.
More than half of these younger consumers have made a purchase because of a post on social media in the last 12 months, an uplift on last year and significantly higher than Gen X and Boomers.”
As of August ‘22, the report measured ‘generational social commerce comfort levels’ to be at:
• Gen Z: 51%
• Millennials: 53%
• Gen X: 39%
• Boomers: 23%
And TikTok is reacting in stride: last week, TechCrunch reported that the platform announced the rollout of a new commerce ad suite ‘Shopping Ads’.
With the new Video Shopping Ads feature, advertisers on TikTok can highlight individual products inside in-feed video ads with more curated dynamic experiences that cater towards amplified product discovery. According to TikTok, the new feature will rely on ‘smart targeting and optimized ad delivery’ to be more strategically intentional around when and where the ads actually end up in front of their potential consumers.
Talk about right place, right time.
AND they sell corn in bulk.