It has become the cheapest entertainment platform in Spain

Mercadona’s last viral is A bath gel that “Smells to gods”. Before it was A car corrector for the car made with hair lacquer. Last week, some margarita pizza flavor potatoes They “know the burning part.”

Each product is a microhistory of discovery, a small corridor treasure that someone reveals in Tiktok like who finds gold in the river. The Valencian chain has transcended its original function: It is no longer just a supermarket, it is the cheapest entertainment platform in Spain.

Contrary to what many believe (“Another undercover publication!”), The media publish all these news without Mercadona pay for a euro. Reality is more prosaic: Any article about a novelty in Mercadona generates a brutal traffic. And that’s why we see headlines like “Is razing for only 4 euros: madness in Mercadona for this popular product“Because many people arouse interest, therefore clicks, therefore gives pasta.

It is the service journalism converted into dopamine machine, where the discovery of a product of 1.50 euros generates the same emotion that we reserved for real events. The editors know it, readers consume it, and Mercadona benefits without spending a euro on traditional advertising.

The interesting thing is not that Carlos Ríos Analyz or that a car influencer use Deliplus lacquer to fix scratches. The thing is These contents work as small treasure search missions for a middle class which has normalized the hunting of gangs as a form of leisure.

Going to Mercadona to look for “What I have seen on Tiktok” is the new hobby national, an Iberian version and Low-Cost of The culture of Unboxing. Each visit to the super promises the possibility of a viral finding, of being the first in your WhatsApp group to share the last rarity.

It is the gamification of basic consumption: you have unlocked the Pizza, congratulations potatoes.

Mercadona has created, surely without pretending, a perfect unpaid influencersystem. Current people who obsessively documented every novelty, every trick, every product “that nobody had seen so far.” They are a curious phenomenon of late capitalism, generating free content for a large company while they think they are doing a public service. In a way they are right.

The nutritionist who classifies bread, the mechanic who finds alternative uses to lacquer, the Tiktoker who smells gels. Channels dedicated exclusively to Mercadona either that reserve a fixed section. Everyone works for free for Juan Roig while they are convinced that they are helping their followers.

That this occurs in Spain in 2025, with Royal flat salaries for three decadesIt is no accident. We live in an era where real experiences are increasingly expensive and inaccessible, So we have democratized the emotion of discovery by reducing it to its minimum expression. We cannot afford Michelin star restaurants, but we can feel the emotion of discovering a strawberry ice cream “that is sweeping.”

We do not travel as much as we would like, but we can experience the novelty by buying a gel that smells like expensive perfume. It is the distilled luxury experience in white marking products (Another phenomenon that defines us), Consumer Stockholm Syndrome that has learned to find joy in crumbs.

Mercadona not only sells products: it also sells small doses of emotion at the balance price, and we have learned to need them as the one that needs your daily dose of Scroll infinite.

Outstanding image | Mr. Ricochet

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