For 155 years, Vaseline has been the quintessential heritage brand—a reliable, unchanging staple found in medicine cabinets across the globe. From its origins in 1870, when chemist Robert Chesebrough first formulated petroleum jelly after observing oil rig workers using the residue to treat burns, the product’s value proposition has remained remarkably consistent. However, the brand is currently undergoing a radical operational pivot, proving that even a century-old legacy can outperform modern startups in the digital arena.
In a bold departure from traditional corporate R&D, Vaseline puts creators at the centre of its innovation roadmap through its “Vaseline Originals” (OGs) campaign. Rather than developing products in a vacuum and then hiring influencers to promote them, the brand is now scanning the internet for “hacks”—unauthorized, user-generated ways of using the product—and turning those community-led discoveries into official retail products.
This transition represents a fundamental shift in the beauty and skincare industry: a move from making products for an audience to creating them with an audience. By validating and scaling the creativity of its users, Vaseline is effectively outsourcing a portion of its innovation pipeline to the people who use its products most creatively.
From Blog Hacks to Retail Shelves
The “Vaseline Originals” initiative is not merely a marketing stunt; it is a product development strategy. The campaign focuses on creators who pioneered specific uses for petroleum jelly long before the brand officially recognized them. This approach turns community members into legitimate co-innovators, granting them “OG” status and a direct hand in the brand’s future.
Two primary examples anchor this new model. In 2008, beauty creator Jen Chae (@frmheadtotoe) shared a technique on her blog using Vaseline as a brow tamer. Similarly, Lauren Luke (@laurenluke_panacea81), one of the earliest pioneers of beauty content on YouTube, introduced a hack using the jelly as a makeup primer. Nearly two decades after these ideas first surfaced, they have been codified into official products: the Vaseline Brow Tamer and the Vaseline All-In-One Primer and Highlighter Jelly.
The market response was immediate. Both products sold out within minutes during a TikTok Live debut featuring Chae and Luke, demonstrating the immense commercial power of “pressure-tested” products—items that have already proven their utility in the wild before ever hitting a laboratory.
A Corporate Pivot Toward ‘Desire at Scale’
This grassroots approach is part of a wider strategic realignment at Unilever, Vaseline’s parent company. The organization is moving toward a marketing model designed to drive what leadership calls “desire at scale.” This involves a significant reallocation of resources away from traditional top-down advertising and toward the creator economy.
To support this shift, Unilever has pledged to increase its annual digital advertising spend on social media—specifically targeting influencers and content creators—from 30% to 50%. The company aims to expand its network of influencer partnerships by 20 times, recognizing that the modern consumer trusts peer-to-peer recommendations far more than corporate slogans.
Nathalia Amadeu, global brand director for Vaseline at Unilever, emphasizes that Here’s a move to decentralize innovation. In a recent interview, Amadeu noted that the company is moving innovation out of the boardroom and into the community, stating that the strongest ideas emerge from creators and consumers because they are already culturally validated.
The Rise of the ‘Prosumer’
The logic behind Vaseline’s strategy is rooted in a generational shift in consumer behavior. The line between the producer and the consumer has blurred, giving rise to the “prosumer.” Data suggests that 74% of Gen-Z individuals view themselves as content creators rather than passive consumers. For Gen Alpha, the aspiration is even more pronounced, with becoming a YouTuber or TikTok creator ranking as one of the most popular dream jobs, often surpassing traditional roles like doctor or entrepreneur.
This demographic no longer wants to be told how a product works; they want to be the ones who discover a new use for it and share that discovery with the world. Vaseline is one of the few heritage brands successfully tapping into this desire for participation.
While other brands have experimented with co-creation, Vaseline is moving further “upstream” in the process. For example, Dr Pepper recently turned an improvised jingle by TikTok creator Romeo Bingham into an official ad, and Coach collaborated with Gen-Z communities to develop book-themed charms for its “Explore Your Story” campaign. While these are successful marketing collaborations, they remain focused on communication. Vaseline, by contrast, is integrating community feedback into the actual physical composition of its product line.
The New Rules of Brand Narrative
The “Vaseline Originals” campaign follows the success of “Vaseline Verified,” an effort that validated thousands of user-submitted hacks and earned prestigious recognition at the Cannes Lions international festival of creativity, including a Titanium Lion. With more than 3.5 million Vaseline-related hacks shared online, the brand has a massive, untapped dataset of consumer desires.
The shift in strategy can be summarized as a move from “owning” a message to “earning” participation. In the current social media landscape, brands no longer control their own narratives; the narrative is formed by the collective conversation of the users. By inviting creators to shape the product roadmap, Vaseline is not fighting for control, but rather leaning into the reality that the community now defines the brand.
| Traditional Model | Vaseline’s Participatory Model |
|---|---|
| Boardroom-led R&D | Community-led discovery |
| Top-down communication | Co-creation and validation |
| Influencers as sales channels | Creators as innovation partners |
| Brand defines the product | Users define the product |
As the search for other “Vaseline OGs” continues, the brand plans to certify more creators whose viral hacks have shaped the way the world uses petroleum jelly. This ongoing effort ensures that the innovation pipeline remains open and responsive to real-time cultural trends.
The next phase of this strategy will likely involve more aggressive integration of community feedback into the early stages of product development, moving the “Verified” process from a marketing campaign to a permanent fixture of the company’s operational workflow.
Do you think heritage brands should let users design their products, or is that too risky for brand consistency? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
