The current age of social media has allowed for more and more ways for corporations to subvert any human spaces still untouched by corporations. The attempts of personification by brands on Twitter is just the newest example of that. Businesses have attempted to infiltrate all aspects of personal life to the point that soon it will be impossible to imagine a world not revolving around these corporations. Twitter has provided a platform for people to form human relationships with brands in ways that were never possible before. The world that Thomas Frank describes in “Dark Age, Why Johnny Can’t Dissent” where new technology could “open vast uncharted regions of private life to business colonization” — has been realized through the platform of social media.
In March of 2006 in San Francisco, California, Twitter was founded and now even 15 years later remains one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. As of 2021, Twitter reported that it had 192 million daily active users. Twitter allows for people to have conversations in real-time, publicly, over the internet, allowing news to spread quickly. The platform prides itself on allowing people to have “free and safe space to talk.” There are many different niche communities on Twitter, often with overlapping interests. Twitter is also a unique site in that it is often described as being “a collection of inside jokes that build on one another.” Many companies have seen Twitter as a unique marketing tool to reach consumers because their brands are able to interact with people directly over the internet. Twitter itself has encouraged this advertising through the official Twitter marketing account. I think this phenomenon is best described by Alex Norica in Vice: ”Before Twitter, there was not such a human-like interaction between brands and actual people — where boxed, processed cattle was alluding to its anxiety and responding to DMs; where a fast-food establishment was promoting its curated playlist.” This paper will focus on brands acting human on Twitter, why the companies do this, and what this means for consumer culture as a whole.
The first Twitter interaction I am focusing on started from a tweet from the orange drink brand called Sunny D, who tweeted out “I can’t do this anymore.”
The tweet was sent on Feb 3, 2019, during the middle of Super Bowl LIII which was a “historically low” — game in terms of scoring and viewership. This can be seen in the headlines from major news outlets where USA Today went with “That Super Bowl was so boring” — while the New York Times settled on “How Boring Was the Super Bowl? The Punts Got Exciting.” The lowest-scoring Super Bowl in history was certainly boring to watch, but what led this orange beverage brand to tweet out in agony about it, as a real person would?
Due to the lack of context that tweets are displayed, other popular brands on Twitter immediately reached out to Sunny D as if the orange drink were suffering from depression. The brand Moon Pie reached out in the replies to ask “What’s going on Sunny” — in which Sunny D replied “Mood Last night. All good MP thanks for checking ily.” Alternatively, Poptart offered a hug to its friend Sunny D, replying “hey sunny can i please offer you a hug we are gonna get through this together my friend.”
These interactions can seem sweet until you fully process what is actually going on. We must remember that these are products owned by billion-dollar companies roleplaying as depressed on Twitter being comforted by different products owned by billion-dollar companies pretending to help them with their imaginary mental illness. For many people, this feels like a mockery of the very real mental illness that they are dealing with on a daily basis.
Sunny D is made by Sunny Delight Beverages, which is owned by Harvest Hill Beverage Company, which is owned by Brynwood Partners, an American private equity investment firm that currently manages more than $1 billion of private equity capital and, as of April 5th, 2021, made more than $2.2 billion in annual sales. Sunny D is distributed by Keurig Dr Pepper, which is owned by JAB Holding Company and Mondelez International, formerly known as Kraft Foods. Both JAB and Mondelez are billion-dollar corporations who own tons of other companies and brands; JAB owns Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread, Kreuing Dr. Pepper, and more while Mondelez owns Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz, Sour Patch Kids, and more. This background knowledge can serve as a reminder that the brand Sunny D is not a person but a product owned by powerful, billion-dollar companies.
MoonPie is owned by Chattanooga Bakery, which is owned by Campbells. Campbells is a billion-dollar company known for their soup, though they also own Pepperidge Farm, the company that makes Goldfish amongst other products. Poptarts is owned by Kellogg’s Company known for their cereal and convenience food, such as Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Pringles, Eggos, and more. Again, the twitter interactions are coming from extremely wealthy food corporations.
In a now-deleted tweet, the snack mascot “Little Debbie” offers advice by quote tweeting the tweet: “If you like Sunny D was yesterday, feeling like giving up, here are some tips: be realistic about what you can do, speak with loved ones who will help break you from this negative self-talk, give yourself an incentive for finishing, remember the “why” of your this.”
Ignoring the fact that this advice is not helpful, these tweets bring up another more prescient question: why is depression advice coming from the snack mascot of honey buns? It is impossible to separate the brand from the advice that is given. Essentially, these brands are using depression to sell us things. Why are brands acting like your friend or your therapist, trying to create relatable tweets about dealing and interacting with mental illness?
This is not a unique thing from the brands like Sunny D, Poptarts, and Moonpie. This fits into a larger theme of brands attempting to give their Twitter accounts a human “persona.” Adam Alter, a marketing and psychology professor at NYU, describes this phenomenon in Vice:
“Brands now behave like real people with idiosyncratic personalities on social media platforms… this humanization of brands means we’ve come to expect small doses of humanity from even large brands that may have once seemed faceless and corporate before the rise of social media.”
Over the last several years, the fast-food chain “Wendy’s” has gone viral for witty responses from their official Twitter account. Wendy’s success has been covered everywhere, such as on news sites including The Today Show, Forbes, and Business Insider, among others. Wendy’s success as a Twitter account can be directly attributed to its personification of itself, which Twitter users seem to love. Yahoo News said that “the Wendy’s Twitter account dished out sassy (but funny) digs at every account” — while Twitter’s brand and content strategy lead Nina Mishkin described Wendy’s Twitter persona as “the sassy friend you want to go to lunch with.” Wendy’s themselves describe their voice as a “challenger with charm” and claimed that “one of their main objectives was to attract millennials.” The brand social media strategy website AgoraPulse argues Wendy’s success comes from the fact that their “personality is definitely well defined and distinct.”
Wendy’s Twitter presence has been extremely successful because of this personification. There is a lot of data that documents how popular Wendy’s Twitter account has been. As of May 2021, Wendy’s has over 3.8 million followers on Twitter. In 2017 alone their average follower growth rate was 126% compared to the restaurant median of 5.9% — which is more than 21 times higher than the average of the restaurant industry. Wendy’s was the only brand to break into the top ten tweets for 2017 after interactions with a fan resulted in the most retweeted tweet in history, a title they held for 2 years. Wendy’s restaurant itself experienced a 49.7% growth in profits from $129.6 million to $194 million for the year. It is very difficult to measure how much of Wendy’s rise in profits is directly tied to their viral marketing campaigns on Twitter, but it is certainly beneficial to the company. This can be seen as “Wendy’s reports six consecutive years of same-store sales growth”- which is noted as unusually successful by Fast Company for a restaurant chain like Wendys.
The concept of personification of Twitter accounts can be seen through tweets from many other major brands including Skittles, Twix, and McDonalds. Recently, Skittles got thousands of likes when they tweeted out “single btw” and other major brands including Snickers, Trident Gum, and Triscuits flirted with the Skittles brand in the replies. The reference of “single btw” is a meme started by a popular twitch streamer that went viral.
Skittles is owned by Mars Incorporated, the largest chocolate company in the world and the 6th largest privately held company in the United States. Another candy owned by Mars, Twix recently replied to someone asking for their pronouns by saying that the candy bar uses “they/them.” The fact that a chocolate caramel candy bar insists it uses pronouns on Twitter highlights how committed these brands are to portraying themselves as human. Similarly, the fast-food giant McDonalds tweeted about how much they enjoy a certain BTS song. All of these are examples of massive companies trying to personify their brands as humans who have emotions and distinct personalities to make them more marketable.
It also cannot be ignored that these brands seem to be communicating on Twitter as teenagers do. This has been heavily noted in the online food and culture magazine “First We Feast” where Regan Hofmann described this as “piggybacking on memes and shamelessly co-opting youth slang.” The choice by major corporations to operate their brand’s Twitter accounts like this shows the persistence of the phrase “no bad press.” First We Feast notes that the brand’s off-the-rails tweets get thousands of retweets, split by those who loved it and those who despise it. Most importantly, however, the marketing campaign was successful as “Either way, you saw them.” The attention received from these tweets is worth the risk, as the strategy around social media marketing is incredibly calculated. The idea that this is simply interns running wild is a common phenomenon that is untrue. Moon Pie for example mocked “the people who believe that a national brand would entrust one of their most powerful communication channels to an intern” — in a tweet. Corporations understand the power of Twitter and are strategically planning their presence on it.
This world sounds very similar to the one that Thomas Frank describes in Dark Age. Frank says “Every imaginable type of human relationship can now be reduced to digital and incorporated into the glowing televisual nexus- brought to you by Pepsico, of course.” In modern times, this means people wanting to be “friends” with Wendy’s, Moonpie, and Poptarts on Twitter. (Figure 4) Twitter has allowed brands to become people that its users can relate to, laugh with, and get to know the personality of. The human-like banter by billion-dollar companies is now performed on Twitter. On Twitter people watch snack companies flirting with each other, joking with one another, and showing compassion for each other. This shows that Frank’s description of reduced, commodified human relationships, is still even more accurate today.
Brands have been able to appeal to our emotions through many other mediums including Television and Radio for many years. However, the age of social media has allowed for brands to have interactions and relationships with people that were not possible before. Where Television advertisements were trying to reach out to you and connect, it was not the same type of connection as Wendy’s Twitter account directly replying to your tweet. Twitter interactions like this are much more personal than hearing a radio jingle because the brand can directly reply and interact with humans in real-time. Brands can reply differently depending on the context of the conversation and the popular trends at the time, unlike television advertisements which take more planning to adapt to the quickly changing trends of American popular culture. Brands can also respond differently to different people, something that is not really possible in different forms of advertisement. This platform allows brands to have much more control over their messaging and imagining compared to older forms of advertising. As mentioned in Vice, this creates a lasting question about it: “Why are real human beings searching for, or at the very least expect, meaning from a brand’s social media presence?” Twitter is an ideal platform for brands in part because tweets are mostly words instead of pictures, which helps hide the fact that brands are not actually people and shields users from the reality of who these messages are coming from. This is different from other social media platforms such as Instagram, where every post contains a photo, which serves as the main part of the post.
Overall, people’s interactions with brands on Twitter highlight the platform’s ability to allow human-like interactions between people and brands. American society is so consumed by companies that we do not necessarily even enjoy that we even seek out interactions with these brands that remind us of real people. The lines have been blurred so heavily between American and corporate culture that corporations have become a part of American culture itself. Social media, such as Twitter, has helped play a role in this blurring. A recent study was done by Twitter, and highlighted on Twitter’s marketing website claims “consumers — particularly younger people on Twitter — expect and even want brands to be culturally relevant.” The blurring of these cultural lines only continues.
Bibliography:
“About JAB.” JAB Holding Company | Long Term Investments | Privately Held Group. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.jabholco.com/
“About Twitter | Our Company and Priorities.” Twitter. Twitter. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://about.twitter.com/.
“About Us.” MoonPie. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://moonpie.com/about.
Barker, Shane. “Why Twitter Engagement Is Essential for Brands Today.” Medium. Marketing And Growth Hacking, November 18, 2019. https://blog.markgrowth.com/why-twitter-engagement-is-essential-for-brands-today-f89c9d61514e.
“Brands + Culture + Twitter = Impact.” Twitter. Twitter. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://marketing.twitter.com/en/insights/brands-plus-culture-plus-twitter-equals-impact.
Brogan & Partners. “Wendy’s Gets Real. Twitter Goes Wild. And Sales?” Brogan & Partners, March 11, 2019. https://brogan.com/blog/wendys-gets-real-twitter-goes-wild-and-sales/.
“Brynwood Partners VII L.P. Agrees to Acquire Sunny Delight Beverages Co. from J.W. Childs Associates.” Harvest Hill, October 23, 2017.
“Brynwood Partners.” Brynwood. Accessed May 10, 2021.
“Campbell Soup Net Worth 2006–2021: CPB.” Macrotrends. Accessed May 10, 2021.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CPB/campbell-soup/net-worth.
Canales, Katie. “Twitter Surpassed 192 Million Daily Active Users in Q4 as the Social Media Company Grappled with Criticism of Its Role in the Spread of Election Misinformation.” Business Insider. Business Insider, February 9, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-earnings-q4-revenue-eps-new-users-2021-2.
Carlson, Nicholas. “The Real History Of Twitter.” Business Insider. Business Insider, April 13, 2011. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4.
Cheng, Andria. “How Wendy’s Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Its Twitter Roasts Of McDonald’s.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, October 8, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andriacheng/2018/10/08/wendys-twitter-roasts-have-become-the-envy-of-marketers-heres-how-it-does-it/?sh=109df7f8fea4.
Colburn, Randall. “Sunny Delight and Little Debbie Are Tweeting about Depression.” News. News, February 4, 2019. https://news.avclub.com/sunny-delight-and-little-debbie-are-tweeting-about-depr-1832340635.
“Creating Brands.” Kellogg Company | Our Brand Portfolio |. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.kelloggcompany.com/en_US/brandportfolio.html.
Draper, Kevin, and Benjamin Hoffman. “How Boring Was the Super Bowl? The Punts Got Exciting.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 4, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/sports/super-bowl-punts-defense.html.
FastCoWorks. “Behind Wendy’s Epic Social Strategy.” Fast Company. Fast Company, April 15, 2019. https://www.fastcompany.com/90330377/behind-wendys-epic-social-strategy.
Frank, Thomas. “Dark Age — Why Johnny Can’t Dissent.” The Baffler, December 1994. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/dark-age.
“Fully Baked And Ready To Eat.” Pop-Tarts® | Kellogg’s Brands. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/brands/pop-tarts-consumer-brand.html.
Gotter, Ana. “What Wendy’s Twitter Account Can Teach Us about ‘Doing Social’.” Agorapulse, April 11, 2017. https://www.agorapulse.com/blog/wendys-twitter-account/.
Hofmann, Regan. “How Fast-Food Restaurants Started Talking Like Teens.” First We Feast. First We Feast, June 1, 2018. https://firstwefeast.com/eat/the-teenification-of-corporate-twitter/.
“How Wendy’s Used Social To Profit M in a Year.” Deputy. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.deputy.com/blog/how-wendys-used-social-to-profit-64m-in-a-year.
Know Your Meme. “Single BTW.” Know Your Meme, March 12, 2021. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/single-btw.
Koltun, Natalie. “Wendy’s CMO on Striking the Right Amount of Social Media Sass.” Marketing Dive, October 5, 2018. http://marketingdive.com/news/wendys-cmo-on-striking-the-right-amount-of-social-media-sass/538976/.
“Mars Incorporated, the 6th Largest Privately Held Company in the United States.” Dailymi, January 31, 2021. https://dailymi.com/business/mars-incorporated-the-6th-largest-privately-held-company-in-the-united-states/.
McDonald’s. “i Can’t Stop Listening.” Twitter. Twitter, April 19, 2021. https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/1384159496042209283.
“Mondelez International, Inc.” Mondelēz International, Inc. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.mondelezinternational.com/#.
MoonPie. “Happy Monday to Everyone Even the People Who Believe That a National Brand Would Entrust One of Their Most Powerful Communication Channels to an Intern Https://T.co/g5QMGDF86D.” Twitter. Twitter, November 27, 2017. https://twitter.com/MoonPie/status/935188778708295680.
MoonPie. “What’s Going on Sunny.” Twitter. Twitter, February 4, 2019. https://twitter.com/MoonPie/status/1092408748088406016.
Norcia, Alex. “Brand Twitter Is Absurd, and It Will Only Get Worse.” VICE. VICE MEDIA GROUP, February 13, 2019. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pangw8/brand-twitter-is-absurd-and-it-will-only-get-worse.
“Operations.” Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/company/operations.
“Our Food.” Campbell Soup Company, April 20, 2021. https://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/our-food/.
Patten, Dominic. “Super Bowl Viewership Falls To Lowest Since 2008 In Historically Low Scoring Game — Update.” Deadline. Deadline, February 4, 2019.
https://deadline.com/2019/02/super-bowl-ratings-patriots-rams-marron-5-worlds-best-cbs-1202548893/.
Peanut, Mr. “It Is with Heavy Hearts That We Confirm That Mr. Peanut Has Died at 104. In the Ultimate Selfless Act, He Sacrificed Himself to Save His Friends When They Needed Him Most. Please Pay Your Respects with #RIPeanut Pic.twitter.com/VFnEFod4Zp.” Twitter. Twitter, January 22, 2020. https://twitter.com/MrPeanut/status/1220013408180895745.
Peeples, Melanie. “Even After 100 Years, People Are Still Reaching For The Moon(Pie).” NPR. NPR, November 25, 2017. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/11/25/565725694/even-after-100-years-people-are-still-reaching-for-the-moon-pie#:~:text=The%20Chattanooga%20Bakery%20in%20Tennessee,be%20made%20per%20day%20here.
Pop-Tarts. “Hey Sunny Can I Please Offer You a Hug We Are Gonna Get through This Together My Friend.” Twitter. Twitter, February 4, 2019. https://twitter.com/PopTartsUS/status/1092480366735249408.
Roman, Laura. “Quest For Free Chicken Nuggets Inspires Twitter’s Most Retweeted Tweet.” NPR. NPR, May 9, 2017. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/09/527597422/quest-for-free-chicken-nuggets-inspires-twitters-most-retweeted-tweet.
Schlager, Brandon. “What Is the Lowest-Scoring Super Bowl? List of Fewest Points Scored in NFL History.” Sporting News, February 2, 2020. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/lowest-scoring-super-bowls-list-fewest-points-scored-nfl-history/chs9xd44ctd1vkj3fs2qa7ra.
Scott, Nate. “That Super Bowl Was so Boring.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, February 4, 2019. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/02/super-bowl-so-boring.
Singh-Kurtz, Sangeeta. “Snack Twitter, from Whoopie Pies to Corn Nuts, Is Rallying around a Depressed SunnyD.” Quartz. Quartz. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://qz.com/quartzy/1542797/snack-twitter-from-whoopie-pies-to-corn-nuts-is-rallying-around-a-depressed-sunnyd/.
Skittles. “Single Btw.” Twitter. Twitter, March 10, 2021. https://twitter.com/Skittles/status/1369770902502662145.
Sorto, Gabrielle. “Why Are Brands like Sunny D Commodifying Depression?” The Daily Dot, February 7, 2019.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/sunny-d-depression-tweet/.
Sunny D. “I Can’t Do This Anymore.” Twitter. Twitter, February 4, 2019. https://twitter.com/sunnydelight/status/1092247574336163840.
Sunnyd. “Mood Last Night. All Good MP Thanks for Checking in Ily.” Twitter. Twitter, February 4, 2019. https://twitter.com/sunnydelight/status/1092412006781599744.
Taylor, Kate. “Fast-Food Chains Are Ramping up Their Social Media Game — Here Was the Best Tweet of 2017.” Business Insider. Business Insider, December 14, 2017. https://www.businessinsider.com/best-fast-food-tweet-was-wendys-nugget-teen-2017-12.
“These Are Twitter’s 10 Most-Retweeted Tweets of the Year.” U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-12-12/twitters-top-10-most-retweeted-tweets-of-2017.
TodayShow. “Wendy’s Is on an Epic Roasting Spree on Twitter — and No One Is Safe.” TODAY.com, February 12, 2021. https://www.today.com/food/wendy-s-takes-twitter-national-roast-day-today-t208870.
Twix. “They/Them.” Twitter. Twitter, April 16, 2021. https://twitter.com/twix/status/1383146557067907083.
Unmetric. “Why Is Wendy’s So Freaking Good at Social Media?” Unmetric Social Media Analytics Blog, November 7, 2019. https://blog.unmetric.com/wendys-social-media.
Upshall, Emma. “JAB and Mondelēz to Reduce Stakes in Keurig Dr Pepper.” FoodBevMedia, November 17, 2020. JAB and Mondelēz to reduce stakes in Keurig Dr Pepper.
“Wendy’s Twitter Account Serves up Sass for National Roast Day.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, February 12, 2021. https://news.yahoo.com/wendy-twitter-account-serves-sass-134047741.html.
“Wendys Twitter.” Twitter. Twitter. Accessed May 10, 2021. https://twitter.com/Wendys.