Some people spend years climbing the corporate ladder. Min Day Lee apparently just needed to mispronounce 'Vaseline' as 'Baseline'.
The South Korean skincare content creator unexpectedly found herself at the centre of a viral beauty moment after sharing a video of her rather impressive Vaseline collection on Instagram.
There was just one tiny detail standing between Lee and a perfectly ordinary skincare video: she kept calling Vaseline 'Baseline'.
Naturally, the internet noticed and was instantly enamoured by how endearingly funny the little mispronunciation was. The accidental rebrand quickly became a meme of its own as social media users repeated and remixed Lee's pronunciation. Her video subsequently amassed millions of views, with one report putting its reach at 36 million.
And rather than issue a correction, Vaseline did something much more entertaining: it became Baseline. Now, that's a next-level definition of 'the customer is always right'.
Vaseline Becomes 'Baseline' After Viral Mispronunciation
Within days, Vaseline's social team had apparently decided there was no point fighting the internet.
The skincare giant rolled out a mock 'Baseline' rebrand across its social media accounts, complete with a redesigned logo and mocked-up product packaging bearing its newly acquired name.
'We heard you. We agreed,' the company announced.
Vaseline then explained the rigorous corporate process behind such a monumental branding decision.
'Following extensive review (by which we mean approximately one video, watched over 1 million times, facts) Vaseline would like to announce our rebrand,' the brand joked.
'Welcome to Baseline, effective immediately.'
Somewhere, an entire branding department presumably just updated its CV.
Min Day Lee Gets Promoted to CEO of 'Baseline'
Clearly, changing the name wasn't enough. Vaseline also decided that the woman responsible for discovering its new identity deserved an appropriate position within the company.
'Full credit to mindaylee for the discovery, who we have taken the liberty of appointing as the CEO of Baseline, effective immediately, no interview required,' the company announced playfully.
Forget multiple interview rounds, reference checks, and carefully rehearsed answers to 'Where do you see yourself in five years?'
Vaseline India even slid into the content creator's comment section, saying, 'BRB adding "Vaseline for everything" to our personality ❤️'. Other fans of the viral antics were ready to have her rule a small nation, as they crowned her the 'Queen of Petroleum Jelly'.
Evidently, confidently mispronouncing the company name in front of millions of people also works when it comes to landing a job you didn't know you were perfect for.
True to its character, the stunt isn't entirely out of sync with Vaseline's recent marketing strategy. The company has previously launched Vaseline Originals, an initiative that turns viral beauty hacks involving its products into actual releases while crediting and compensating the creators behind them.
However, this time, it wasn't a skincare hack that caught the brand's attention. It was two consonants.
Lee started with an extensive Vaseline collection and ended up CEO of Baseline without so much as updating LinkedIn.
At this rate, the rest of us may have been pronouncing our way through job applications incorrectly all along.
