The launch of a unicorn-themed drink by a transnational coffee chain became a trend on social media and in the media in the United States. What makes a pink and blue drink become the trending topic in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada?
What concerns us here is everything behind the phenomenon that has become, both on social media and in pop culture, the analyses of nutritional content and/or flavors. Behind this phenomenon are elements to analyze, as they speak about us not only in relation to the drink itself, but also in how food trends come and go. In other words, how a food becomes fashionable in certain contexts.
The answer to why the drink succeeded is more complex than just a good marketing strategy. Almost any food trend falls into one or several of the following categories: health, indulgence, convenience, and environment. Think of all the foods that become fashionable: from foods presented in bowls, like the açai bowl (health and convenience), to kale (health), passing through cupcakes, cronuts, rainbow bagels, and products available at farmers’ markets. The way these foods position themselves as a trend responds to a complex web that many specialists recognize is woven up to five years before it becomes a trend. Included in this web are strategies from the largest PR agencies to position a chef, research lines that focus on a food and suddenly publicize all its benefits, marketing strategies, and the sociodemographic profile of the main consumers of a given product.
In the case of the unicorn drink, many expectations of its main consumer group, millennials, are met. They are a generation focused on what some specialists call the “4 E’s”: experience, entertainment, exhibitionism, and evangelization. The drink offers experience, as it changed color and flavor as it was consumed. It offered entertainment with a theme alluding to magic and fantasy, for a generation that grew up reading Harry Potter, lived through the revival of the Star Wars saga, and saw the release of The Lord of the Rings in theaters. It alludes to exhibitionism, since the colors and the frenzy it caused on social media were partly due to documenting how the drink was experienced, becoming part of the conversation. Finally, the ephemeral nature of its accessibility—it was only available from April 19 to 23—gave it a carpe diem aura at the moment of consumption.
The food trend prediction industry is worth millions of dollars. Many predictions are false, as they are based only on the opinions of selected groups. Even The New Yorker dedicates a special issue to food and mocks food trend predictions. In most cases, predictions—such as the purple and blue foods forecasted for 2017—are based, in addition to opinions, on the complex economic, political, social, and cultural web that governs our eating habits and what we make fashionable. Next time something becomes fashionable in food, remember not to reduce it to a marketing strategy or a calorie bomb and ask yourself: what is happening in our context?
Originally published in El Economista
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.