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Welcome to Day 7 of the Best of YAP 2024!

Our team’s taking a little holiday break, but don’t worry—we aren’t going anywhere.

Because over this holiday period, you’ll be treated to one of our fave articles in your inbox each day.

So whether you’re sitting by the fire with a warm cup of cocoa (lookin’ at you, Northern hemi folks), or hitting the beach (for those of us having a summer Christmas), you can catch up on some reading and remind yourself of what a wild year 2024 was.

Catch ya in 2025!

- Charlotte, Editor ♡

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.

[Keep reading]

-Sophie, Writer

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