Category: SOCIAL MEDIA

After sharing insights into how younger audiences in the U.S. are engaging in its app earlier in the month, X has now published new research into how European Gen Z users are using the app, and the opportunities for brands to reach this influential consumer group via X ads.

Which seems potentially incorrect, based on X’s EU usage disclosures, but we’ll get to that.

First off, X says that more and more young people in EU are coming to the app.

As per X:

“Gen Z in Europe is not just online, they’re on X, and they’re turning cultural moments into commercial impact. With over 30 million Gen Z users on the platform across Europe – a +37% increase since 2022 — the time for brands to connect is now.”

Okay, to clarify, overall, X has actually been losing active users in Europe, based on its official disclosures.

Under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), all online platforms with over 45 million users in the region need to share transparency data every six months, which includes total active EU users. And X has reported declines, down from 111 million total users in August 2023, to 106 million at last report (October 2024).

So overall, X has lost around 6% of its total EU audience, based on total reach.

Which conflicts with X’s claim in this report:

“Across Europe, 119.3 million people use X every month – and Gen Z is powering that momentum.”

Again, based on X’s official, publicly reported data, X is currently serving 106 million total EU users. And it’s never been up to 119 million in its DSA reports, so not sure where this info is coming from.   

As such, given that the platform has seen an overall decline in EU users, it seems unlikely that X has also seen a 37% increase in Gen Z users within the same period.

Then again, Gen Z is also growing, so that number is inevitably going to go up. But essentially, we don’t really know what these overall growth figures represent, nor how relevant they may be within this context.

Math queries aside, X says that Gen Z users are drawn to X because it’s “fast, raw, and real-time,” and it remains the home of breaking news in many sectors.

“Gen Z users on X aren’t just present, they’re actively leaned into the topics that matter to them, at significantly higher rates than their peers on other social platforms. For example, they are 22% more likely to express interest in technology compared to non-X users, showing a strong appetite for content around innovation, devices, and digital culture. This makes X a valuable space for brands in the tech sector looking to engage early adopters and digitally native consumers.”

In terms of popular topics, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that gaming and sports are key topics of discussion among younger audiences in the app:

That aligns with X’s previous reports on top topics of conversation, highlighting the enduring value the app provides for users looking to stay up to date in these categories.

X also says that Gen Z users actively engage with fashion content, and are also looking to shop based on X posts.

Finally, X also notes that European Gen Z love video content:

“Gen Z is 1.5x more likely to engage with long-form video on X – and advertisers have a powerful combination: intent + attention.”

So, should X be on your radar if you’re looking to engage with younger audiences?

On balance, I would say that TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram have more appeal to a broader scope of younger users. But maybe, in certain verticals, X could serve a purpose, in tapping into relevant conversations in certain segments and topics.

But I don’t understand X’s marketing push, and its use of data points that conflict with its own official reporting. That puts all of its claims under a cloud, and I’m not sure how much stock I’d be putting into the data specifics here.

You can check out X’s full EU Gen Z data overview here.  

Reddit has announced an expansion of its Conversation Ads offering, which enables marketers to place their promotions within the chat section beneath Reddit posts.

Which is where most of the engagement in the app happens, and now, Reddit says that all advertisers will be able to serve ads between comments on conversation pages when they run conversation ads.

Reddit launched its updated Conversation Ads last June, which include larger media space, as well as improved placement and display options.

And now, it’s also enhancing its control and placement options within the process.

As per Reddit:

“Conversation ads enable advertisers to reach users in a high-intent mindset, driving results across the funnel. With placements now available deeper into the comments page, advertisers can expand their campaign reach, connecting with additional audiences at scale.”

That could provide more opportunity to reach users at just the right time, as they go about researching related products and options.

Reddit says that all advertisers using Conversation Ads will now be opted into available ad slots throughout the comments page “that meet their specified brand safety requirements.”

Finally, Reddit’s also partnered with ad verification providers DoubleVerify and IAS to offer audience and response measurement across conversation pages.

Reddit ads are becoming a bigger consideration, as more people turn to the platform for real product insight, from real people, as opposed to AI-generated summaries or manipulated reviews on product pages.

And with 101 million daily active users, and rising, Reddit is becoming a bigger destination for such discovery, which could make it a valuable surface within your broader outreach.

Individual results will vary, of course, but Reddit’s ad offerings are improving, which could be another option to consider in the social media marketing mix.

Meta may soon look to expand its ad-free subscription offering to the U.K., after settling with an individual user who objected to her data being used for ad targeting in the app.

In the original case, brought against Meta back in 2022, U.K. human rights campaigner Tanya O’Carroll argued that she has a legal right to object to the use of her personal data for direct marketing, as per U.K. consumer laws. Meta argued that its targeted ads don’t qualify as direct marketing, but it’s now reached a settlement agreement, which will ensure that O’Carroll herself will not have her data used by Meta for ad targeting purposes.

Which is a smaller victory than O’Carroll had hoped for, as it doesn’t establish this right within law, but rather meets the technical requirements of this individual case. But even so, it could establish the precedent that U.K. users do have the right to opt out of having their personal information used for ad targeting.

And in order to mitigate any similar cases in future, Meta could look to give U.K. users the right to opt out, for a fee, as it does in EU.

Though that hasn’t exactly been a simple alternative in Europe either, with various advisory groups arguing that Meta’s ad-free subscription undermines the focus of the GDPR, and its protections against “data capitalism.” 

That’s forced Meta to cut the price of the offering, in order to appease EU regulators, and win broad support for the alternative. But really, the case there also remains unsettled, and as such, offering the same in the U.K. could also lead to further challenges to Meta’s mitigation process.

It’s an interesting case study either way, and I suspect that Meta will take a wait-and-see approach before deciding on whether to expand access to its ad-free subscription model, though I also think that the vast majority of people will opt to use Facebook and IG for free, rather than pay to get rid of ads.

Though that’s really the core of the argument, that as a legal right, users shouldn’t have to pay to enact it.

Expect to see further challenges on this in future.

For those still confused as to why Meta and Mark Zuckerberg suddenly became fans of Donald Trump straight after the U.S. election, this context might help.

This week, Meta was among a range of tech companies, including Google, Apple, and X, which co-signed a request for the U.S. Government to step in to help them push back against what they’ve labeled “discriminatory” Australian media laws that force them to pay local news providers.

Back in 2021, the Australian government implemented its “News Media Bargaining Code” which effectively forces social apps and search engines to pay local publishers for any use of their content, including links to their sites.

The bill aims to address the impact that digital platforms have had on the ad industry, and subsequent publisher revenues, by redistributing some of the money raked in by the big apps to local providers.  

Both Google and Meta have long opposed the bill, with Meta even banning Australian news outlets from its apps for a short time, before the government negotiated a truce. Through that negotiation, both Meta and Google eventually agreed to lesser revenue share deals with Australian publishers, though that’s still resulted in around $200 million per annum being transferred to local publishing companies.

But last year, Meta sought to get out of the deal entirely, citing the “de-prioritization of news” on its platforms. That’s prompted a revision in approach from Australian authorities.

And now, the tech giants are hoping that Trump’s USA-first approach will enable a stronger pushback against the legislation.

As reported by The Guardian:

“Members of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) responded to a request by the Office of the United States Trade Representative for ‘comments to assist in reviewing and identifying unfair trade practices and initiating all necessary actions to investigate harm from non-reciprocal trade arrangements’. The comments describe Australia’s news media bargaining incentive as a ‘proposed coercive and discriminatory tax that requires U.S. technology companies to subsidize Australian media companies’.”

And in this instance at least, they’re right. Australia’s News Bargaining Code is a misguided tax on tech platforms, which actually provide more benefit to Australian publishers than the other way around.

As noted, the Australian Government is currently seeking to amend the code to ensure that the platforms keep paying, even if they were to block news entirely, like Meta did back in 2021. But again, this is a pretty blatant levy on tech platforms purely for being successful. And while local publishers could definitely use the extra funding, siphoning it from Meta and Google, which are now their key connectors to their audience, is not the right approach.

The right strategy would seemingly be more stringent tax enforcement, which forces foreign companies to pay local tax, as opposed to establishing offices in tax havens to reduce their obligations.

Meta, for example, reportedly paid $42 million in Australian taxes in 2023, based on $1.4 billion in local ad revenue. But local authorities believe that Meta actually brought in more like $5 billion in local revenue in the period, with the majority of that being funneled through its offices in Ireland, where it pays a much lower tax rate.

The Australian government did actually also look to enact this in 2018, to ensure that Meta and others would be forced to pay their fair share under local tax rules. But the previous Trump administration opposed it, saying that it would not stand for U.S. companies facing higher tax obligations.

But maybe, if the U.S. is going to seek to avoid local obligations either way, and impose tariffs on virtually every partner, that could open the door for a re-examination of this option, with any tax intake to then be re-distributed to local publishers.

Barring that, it still seems misguided for the Australian government to impose what looks like an arbitrary tax on tech platforms simply because they make a lot of money. Australian authorities are also under pressure from local media entities to get more out of the tech players, but again, the approach, as Meta notes, is pretty clearly unfair to its business.

And the Trump Administration has already made it clear that it is indeed going to back American companies in opposing foreign regulatory approaches like this.

Meta’s main target in this respect is the EU, where it’s been faced with an ever-evolving array of complex data protection and usage obligations, resulting in billions of dollars in fines for the business.

But the White House is also looking to even out all trade deals to better favor the U.S.

As such, I’d expect that Australia may have to revise its approach, or say goodbye to the additional revenue that it’s currently generating from the Media Bargaining Code.

The U.S. government will assess submissions before taking further action.

With Meta launching the first stage of its roll-out of Community Notes, which will replace third-party fact-checkers, and put the onus of slowing the spread of misinformation into the hands of its users, a new report has once again highlighted the flaws of the Community Notes system that’s currently in place on X, which Meta is building its own approach around.

According to new analysis conducted by Bloomberg, which looked at over a million Community Notes that have been listed in X’s system, the vast majority are never actually shown to users of the app, despite many of those unpublished notes being deemed to be both helpful and accurate.

As per Bloomberg:

“A Bloomberg Opinion analysis of 1.1 million Community Notes — written in English, from the start of 2023 to February 2025 — shows that the system has fallen well short of counteracting the incentives, both political and financial, for lying, and allowing people to lie, on X. Furthermore, many of the most cited sources of information that make Community Notes function are under relentless and prolonged attack — by Musk, the Trump administration, and a political environment that has undermined the credibility of truly trustworthy sources of information.”

According to Bloomberg’s analysis, fewer than 10% of the Community Notes submitted via X’s notes system are ever shown in the app, primarily because of the qualifier that all notes have to gain consensus from people of differing political opinions in order to be displayed.

As X explains:

“Community Notes assesses “different perspectives” entirely based on how people have rated notes in the past; Community Notes does not ask about or use any other information to do this (e.g. demographics like location, gender, or political affiliation, or data from X such as follows or posts). This is based on the intuition that Contributors who tend to rate the same notes similarly are likely to have more similar perspectives, while contributors who rate notes differently are likely to have different perspectives. If people who typically disagree in their ratings agree that a given note is helpful, it’s probably a good indicator the note is helpful to people from different points of view.”

That means that notes on the most divisive political misinformation, in particular, are never seen, and thus, such falsehoods are not addressed, nor impacted by crowd-sourced fact-checking.

Which is similar to what The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found in its analysis of X’s community notes, published in October last year, which showed that 74% of proposed notes that the CCDH found to be accurate and rightful requests for amendment were never displayed to users.

As you can see in this chart, it’s not difficult to understand why notes on these specific topics fail to reach cross-political consensus. But these narratives are also among the most harmful forms of misinformation, sparking unrest, distrust, and broad-ranging division.

And in many cases, they’re wholly untrue, yet Community Notes is utterly useless in limiting such from being amplified, within an app that has 250 million daily users. And it’s about to become the primary tool against the spread of similar misinformation, in an app that has 12x more users.

Yet another study, conducted by Spanish fact-checking site Maldita, and published earlier this year, found that 85% of notes remain invisible to users on X.

Some have suggested that these stats actually prove that the Community Notes approach is working, by weeding out potentially biased and unnecessary censorship of information. But rejection rates of 80% to 90% don’t seem to befit an efficient, effective program, while the CCDH report also notes that it independently assessed the legitimacy of the notes in its study, and found that many did rightfully deserve to be displayed, as a means of dissuading misleading info.

In addition to this, reports also suggest that X’s Community Notes system has been infiltrated by organized groups of contributors who collaborate daily to up and downvote notes.

Which is also alluded to in Bloomberg’s analysis:

“From a sample of 2,674 notes about Russia and Ukraine in 2024, the data suggests more than 40% were unpublished after initial publication. Removals were driven by the disappearance of 229 out of 392 notes on posts by Russian government officials or state-run media accounts, based on analysis of posts that were still up on X at the time of writing.”

So almost half of the Community Notes that had been both appended to, and then approved by Community Notes contributors on posts from Russian state media accounts, later disappeared, due to disputes from other Community Notes contributors. 

Seems like more than a glitch or coincidence, right?

To some degree, there will always be a level of erroneous or malicious activity within the Community Notes process, because of the deliberately low barriers for contributor entry. In order to be approved as a Community Notes contributor on X, all you need is an account that’s free of reports, and has been active for a period of time. Then all you need to do is basically tick a box that says that you’ll tell the truth and act in good faith, and you go onto the waiting list.

So it’s easy to get into the Community Notes group, and we don’t know if Meta is going to be as open with its contributors.

But that’s kind of the point, that the system uses the opinions of the average user, the average punter watching on, as part of a community assessment on what’s true and what’s not, and what deserves to have additional contextual info added.

That means that X, and Meta, don’t have to make that call themselves, which ensures that Elon and Zuck can wash their hands of any content amplification controversies in future.

Better for the company, and in theory, more aligned with community expectations, as opposed to potentially biased censorship.

But then again, there are certain facts that are not disputable, that there is clear evidence to support, that are still regularly debated within political circles.

And in a time where the President himself is prone to amplifying misleading and incorrect reports, this seems like an especially problematic time for Meta to be shifting to the same model.

At 3 billion users, Facebook’s reach is far more significant than X’s, and this shift could see many more misleading reports gain traction among many communities in the app.

For example, is Russia’s claim that Nazis are taking over Ukraine, which it’s used as part of justification for its attack on the nation, accurate?

This has become a talking point for right-wing politicians, as part of the push to lessen America’s support for Ukraine, yet researchers and academics have refuted such, and have provided definitive evidence to show that there’s been no political uprising around Nazism or fascism in the nation.

But this is the kind of claim that won’t achieve cross-political consensus, due to ideological and confirmation bias.

Could misinformation like this, at mass scale, reduce support for the pushback against Russia, and clear the way for certain political groups to dilute opposition to this, and similar pushes?

We’re going to find out, and when it’s too late, we’re likely going to realize that this was not the right path to take.    

So, this is something.

Today, X has announced a March Madness “Bracket Challenge”, in partnership with Uber Eats, with the grand prize for a perfect March Madness bracket being a trip to Mars onboard one of Elon’s yet-to-be-built rocket ships.

Yep, a trip to Mars. That’s definitely going to happen, definitely sometime in the next decade.

As per X:

“Basketball fans can now compete for a chance to win a trip to Mars – yes that’s right, a trip to Mars on SpaceX’s Starship vehicle for the perfect bracket, or a $100,000 cash prize if there is no perfect bracket.”

Mars. Yep.

I mean, I get why people are so high on Elon, based on the various projects that he’s been involved with that have defied expectation, or expanded what’s possible with certain technologies. But it still amazes me that people take everything he says 100% seriously, and trust that his grand visions are actually going to come to fruition.

Because most of his projects are based on his imagination, and building on top of conceptual ideas.

For example, Elon’s been promising full self-driving cars “next year” for a decade now, yet FSD doesn’t seem to be any closer than it was three or four years ago. But that hasn’t stopped Elon from building on that premise, because if FSD is actually rolled out, then Tesla can facilitate “robotaxis,” and deliver passive income for Tesla owners. That then extends to self-driving buses, revolutionizing transport as we know it, and pushing Tesla’s valuation to record levels.

None of these things are anywhere close to reality, it’s a fictional premise built on top of another, but without that initial foundation being in place, none of the rest matters. It’s just ideas, which Tesla may well be thinking about, and could even be working towards in some capacity. But until it navigates the first hurdle, it’s all irrelevant.

The same with building a city on Mars. SpaceX has barely achieved orbit, while its most recent rocket launches have exploded spectacularly. Yet Musk is already talking about regular travel to Mars, and setting the scene for a futuristic city on the red planet. None of that is close to reality either, though at the same time, I guess someone has to be thinking big if we ever want to achieve it.

But the point is Elon’s visions are not entirely grounded in reality.

Which makes a ticket to Mars as a prize pretty much worthless.

But if you do predict all the winners for March Madness, you don’t have to accept a fictional Mars ticket, with X also offering an optional $250,000 cash prize, along with a year of free residential Starlink service.

Spoiler alert: The winner, if there is one, will be taking the cash.

As X notes, if there is no perfect bracket, the next closest winner will get $100k, while four fantasy game winners will also receive $10k each.

So there are other prizes that are real, and this is an actual competition, with actual prizes, not just some fantasy sweepstakes for metaphorical magic beans.

But yeah, offering a ticket to Mars is certainly a choice.

X users will need to register beforehand, and enter their brackets in the app.

X says that people can follow @Sports for updates on its Bracket Challenge.

Are you considering investing in Facebook and Instagram ads for your business? Want to create compelling ads that convert viewers into your desired action?

The team from Bannersnack share their tips for success in this infographic.

They cover the following 3 major placement areas:

• Facebook desktop
• Facebook app
• Instagram app

Check out the infographic for more detail.

A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.

Meta’s questionable approach to data gathering to power its generative AI projects could result in significant penalties for the company, and might also set a new legal precedent for such use, after a federal judge ruled that a case brought against Meta by a group of authors will be allowed to proceed.

Back in 2023, a group of authors, including high-profile comedian Sarah Silverman, launched legal action against both Meta and OpenAI over the use of their copyrighted works to train their respective AI systems. The authors were able to show that these AI models were capable of reproducing their work in highly accurate form, which they claim demonstrates that both Meta and OpenAI used their legally protected material without consent. The lawsuit also alleges that both Meta and OpenAI removed the copyright information from their books to hide this infringement.

Meta has since sought to have the case thrown out on various legal grounds, while it’s also sought to keep Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from having to personally front the trial, in order to answer for his part in the process.

That stems from uncovered internal exchanges from Meta which appear to indicate that Zuckerberg himself approved the use of “likely pirated” material, as part of a broader push get his team to build better AI models to combat the rise of OpenAI.

It seems now that more information about Meta’s processes in this case will be revealed, with the trial set to proceed, as approved by a federal judge.

As reported by TechCrunch:

“In Friday’s ruling, [Judge] Chhabria wrote that the allegation of copyright infringement is “obviously a concrete injury sufficient for standing” and that the authors have also “adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed CMI [copyright management information] to conceal copyright infringement.”

As such, the case will be allowed to progress, with Zuckerberg in attendance, though the judge did dismiss the authors’ claims relating to violations of the California fraud act, as he found no precedent for this element.

The case could end up being an embarrassing forced disclosure for the company, with Meta essentially required to answer for how it accessed key elements of the data set that powers its Llama AI models. That could also lead to further lawsuits for violation of copyright, and could end up costing the company billions in penalties as a result.

At the same time, the case may also set a new precedent for AI-related copyright penalties moving forward, by establishing a clear link between illegal data access as it relates to online repositories.

Though that element is likely already fairly solid in legal terms, with Meta apparently knowingly violating existing copyright law by approving the use of pirated material.

In any event, it could end up being a defining legal case in the broader AI shift, pitting high-profile artists against the tech giant.

The case is set to proceed shortly.

Threads is working on another way to encourage people to follow other users in the app, with a new “Interests” field now available on some user profiles.

As you can see in this example, shared by app researcher @faslu_35, some Threads users are now being prompted to “Add interests” to their profile via a pop-up notification. Tap through on that prompt, and you can add topics that you’re interested in, and are thus likely to post about, which will then be displayed on to profile visitors.

Threads has been experimenting with the option for the last few weeks, with app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi also noting the feature in development.

And it’s looking pretty polished, pretty close to final sign-off, so it does seem like this will be coming to all users some time soon.

Which, ideally, will help Threads to address a core retention problem that it’s found with the app, in that if creators can’t build an audience, and see their follow count go up, they’re less likely to keep posting.

Due to the shift to AI-based recommendations, and the prioritization of the “For You” algorithmic-defined feed in almost every social app, following has become less of a focus, because users no longer need to follow individual profiles, as they can rely on the algorithm to show them the most relevant content each time they log in.

That, of course, is by design. The apps benefit from having users rely on recommended content because it enables them to showcase more of the best material from across the app, as opposed to being confined to only displaying posts from each users’ explicit follows. It also means that there’s a never-ending stream of posts that each app can show to users to keep them engaged.

So it makes sense that the platforms have shifted in this direction, but the downside then is that people are following fewer profiles as a result, because they no longer need to be so intentional to populate their feed.

Which has annoyed many creators, who’ve complained that growing an audience on Threads is much harder than it had been on Twitter back in the day, while most have also found that their follower counts have plateaued, and even declined over time, ultimately leaving them less aligned to the app.

And when you consider that only a fraction of any social platform’s user base actually ever post anything at all (100% of the content on X is generated by just 20% of its audience), losing their favor can have a significant impact on overall usage and engagement.

That’s why Threads updated its algorithm back in November to put more emphasis on content posted by accounts that you follow, in the hopes of enhancing the connection between creators and users.

Anecdotally, speaking to creators who I know and follow, this hasn’t had a huge impact, but maybe, by highlighting topics on profiles, that’ll be another way to drive more people to hit “follow”, which will then see more creators gain more exposure to these users.

I can’t hurt, as it’s a fairly unintrusive display element. I doubt it’ll have a huge impact either way, but it could be another way to help drive topical community engagement.  

In a video on TikTok last year, a young girl from Texas is seen opening her birthday presents, breaking down in happy tears at one specific gift: a pink multipack of her favorite instant ramen, Buldak’s carbonara variety. Samyang Foods, the maker of Buldak, sprung into action as the video went viral. Just a month later, the brand engineered another moment designed for virality, delivering a Buldak-themed party — and a huge supply of ramen — directly to the young girl’s house in a custom pink truck.

“This activation was an example of engagement with our fans,” said Sarah Tang, marketing director at Samyang America. “We try to build community with our audience — not just advertising. As much as they love us, we try to show our appreciation.”

Consumer love for Samyang and its Buldak products is real: Numerator recently named it the top brand in the U.S. among Gen Alpha, calling it “a cultural and culinary phenomenon” among the cohort, which includes consumers born beginning in 2010. Samyang ranked ahead of brands like Owala water bottles, Dr. Squatch soap and Fortnite.

The ranking is validation of the work Samyang, which released South Korea’s first-ever instant ramen in 1963, has done to grow beyond a niche Korean food brand into a favorite of younger consumers who increasingly reach for spicy foods.

The company launched its U.S. affiliate in 2021 and worked to raise the brand’s profile at retailers including Costco, Walmart and Target. At the end of 2023, Samyang was in less than 10,000 stores; by the end of last year, it was in more than 22,000. The addition of a marketing team a little more than a year ago has helped turn viral engagement into a real-world footprint.

“If we could not achieve a strong retail extension, we would not have this success in terms of results,” Tang explained. “Brands that are very popular in the social world… it’s hard to make it in real-life without an omnichannel strategy.”

Tapping into brand love

Samyang America’s marketing team is lean but agile, which makes it easy for the brand to tap into viral moments like the one with the girl in Texas. But it still relies on a collaborative relationship with the company’s South Korea headquarters to put resources behind its marketing.

“Without their support, we would not be able to do [the activations] as we are still a small organization,” Tang said. “We work very closely and it is a very cooperative relationship in terms of marketing operations.”

Samyang is investing in digital as part of an omnichannel strategy that will also include a brand-owned platform that captures consumer feedback and brand love in one place. The company is also looking at a pair of growing channels that continue to converge, tapping into CTV and working to have a better presence on retail media networks owned by Walmart, Target and Kroger.

It has also embraced experiential marketing, a tactic that has returned to full force after a pullback during the height of the pandemic. Elevating sampling with in-person activations has helped Samyang move beyond instant ramen into the sauce category. In October and November, Samyang rolled out a variety of activations in New York and Los Angeles as part of its “Splash Buldak” campaign, which featured mascot appearances and “sauce exchange” pop-ups that allowed consumers to trade in old take-out sauce packets for free Buldak Hot Sauce.

Experiential has also helped the brand meet viral moments, even ones not as positive as a little girl’s brand love. Last June, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration briefly recalled several varieties of Buldak, claiming that the levels of capsaicin — the chemical in peppers that make them spicy — were too high and could poison consumers. Once the ban was lifted on two of the products, Samyang helped Danish consumers celebrate the return of the products by setting sail on the “Buldak Spicy Ferry” in Copenhagen’s harbor.

“It was a strategic move to break the narrative,” Tang said. “We tried to play in a [fun] way after a regulatory challenge and also reaffirm that we care about you as much as you care about us.”