What Does Fleetwood Mac and Ocean Spray Have in Common?

(Photo Credit: TikTok)

The year is 1977. Jimmy Carter is President. Star Wars is playing in movie theatres. And on June 18th, 1977, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac is the #1 song in America. 43 years later, the song is back on top of the charts.

Why? TikTok.

When I open the app I see a video of a man, Nathan Apodaca, riding a skateboard. He's drinking Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and lip syncing the song Dreams. His video has 23.5M views. This number doesn’t include the millions of views on other platforms such as Twitter. It has also sparked a wave of parodies.

One video has a famous Instagrammer wearing a pumpkin hat while drinking Starbucks. Fleetwood Mac's namesake, Mick Fleetwood, responded with his own take on the video. He posted on TikTok, his first, imitating the video. There are already 5.6M views and counting.

The impact for Fleetwood Mac has been remarkable, to say the least. According to Billboard:

"For the three-day period of Sept. 25 - Sept. 27, "Dreams" racked up 2.9 million on-demand U.S. streams and 3000 in digital download sales -- numbers up 88.7% and 374%, respectively, from their totals in the prior three-day periods, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. (The song also climbed as high as No. 24 on Spotify's US Daily chart on Sept. 27.)"

Dreams is in 38.1K TikTok videos. This isn't the first time Fleetwood Mac has gone viral on TikTok. In late July, their song, The Chain, was featured in a handful of videos.

Virality Has a New Gatekeeper

What's interesting is cultural trends on TikTok usually start with unknown creators. TikTok's algorithm doesn't favor those with large follower counts. The company explains in a blog post:

"While a video is likely to receive more views if posted by an account that has more followers, by virtue of that account having built up a larger follower base, neither follower count nor whether the account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors in the recommendation system."

TikTok has upended the power structure of virality. In the past, you needed a gatekeeper to accelerate virality — an account with a large social media presence sharing a video, photo or meme. 

Remember The dress? It was a viral photograph where viewers disagreed on a dress color. Was it black and royal blue, or white and gold? That went viral because Buzzfeed shared the post. Virality had a gatekeeper until TikTok's algorithm came along.

How Brands Need to React?

Now TikTok's algorithm is the gatekeeper. What does this mean for brands?

In the past, brands would spend millions on large influencers, stars such as Kim Kardashian or Kylie Jenner. Now, some of that ad spend is shifting to micro-influencers.

Yes, micro-influencers were always a thing, but now the potential is uncapped. Instagram's platform made it next to impossible for small accounts to achieve virality — especially at the level of TikTok.

We are seeing brands use TikTok influencers to supplement or replace their produced content. For example, why hire an agency to produce content when you have a bevy of influencers at your disposal. These influencers produce authentic content, unparalleled, compared to an agency.

Start with Earned Media Scale with Paid Media

This brings me back to Ocean Spray. Ocean Spray was founded in 1930. It's an agricultural cooperative that grows cranberries and grapefruits. The company is a household name. I remember it being the go-to choice for those with bladder issues.

I doubt the company board had TikTok virality on the agenda, but here we are. Ocean Spray has been quiet since the virality began. As one Twitter user tweeted:

"Accidentally created the coolest Ocean Spray advert ever"

Another tweeted:

"Ocean Spray basically hit the jackpot for free publicity, Fleetwood Mac albums and cranberry juice not far behind. All thanks to one cool guy on a skateboard. Modern life is interesting."

Ocean Spray hit the earned media jackpot. It's hard to calculate the cost of the exposure, but I imagine it's in the tens of millions of dollars. You can’t buy publicity like this.

While I doubt it was intentional, I think Ocean Spray not responding to the publicity was smart. They allowed the momentum to build which sparked the subsequent parody videos. If they had replied, it would’ve slowed down the momentum.

But what should Ocean Spray do now? America loves the video. It brings hope and happiness at a much needed time in this country. Ocean Spray did the right thing by not commenting. Now they need to sign Fleetwood Mac and Nathan Apodaca as spokesmen and build a campaign around them.

In the beginning, I asked what does Fleetwood Mac and Ocean Spray have in common … they are poster children for TikTok’s virality.