Can TikTok’s new CEO convince big brands to spend on the platform?
TikTok broached former Disney EXEC Kevin Mayer last week to be its new business executive and to function COO of parent company ByteDance. Hiring a pacesetter within the U.S. may be a sensible move, since TikTok’s affiliation to China has sparked each speculation and scrutiny — as well as from U.S.
lawmakers, WHO ar involved concerning each privacy and censorship. many government agencies, as well as nearly all branches of the military, have even barred workers from downloading or mistreatment the app. Appointing a business executive within the U.S. will definitely build the platform additional appealing to Western brands.
But hiring new leadership isn’t nearly enough to urge massive brands to shift from experimenting with content on TikTok to investment massive bucks in ad pay. ByteDance is looking forward to Mayer’s ability to create TikTok as no-hit in attracting massive advertisers because it has been in attracting users.
TikTok was the foremost downloaded app in Q1, 2020, therefore a recession possible won’t hinder its quality or stop brands continued to experiment with organic content on the platform. In fact, the social media platform can possible grow throughout a recession as individuals pay longer with digital content.
TikTok has forever been standard among youth, however it’s currently attracting associate degree older demographic, too, that ought to build it even additional appealing to brands.
It is a good time to be associate degree publicist on TikTok. once it involves ads, that is however TikTok makes cash, the platform includes a ton of offer (people look videos) and comparatively low demand (brands advertising on the platform), particularly compared to Facebook. In alternative words, brands that ar already advertising on TikTok can be obtaining broader reach at a fraction of the value of advertising on alternative platforms. but the challenge is that the demographic of the audience on TikTok and its actual getting power.
The overwhelming majority of brands aren’t able to get serious concerning TikTok advertising nevertheless. they’re still within the test-and-learn part, running multiple experiments to raised understand however TikTok works and the way it’d perform for them. They savvy engagement appearance on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, however they’re still working out what TikTok’s format and audience will deliver.
Some well-known, world brands — as well as Mercedes Benz, raincoat Cosmetics, and Burberry — have run no-hit experiments and ar prior to the curve in testing the TikTok’s potential as a promoting platform. however most of their campaigns stressed hashtag challenges and influencers, not paid advertising. raincoat Cosmetics, for instance, launched its #YouOwnIt hashtag challenge on TikTok and earned quite two.3 billion views.
The campaign come into being with a clip created by raincoat, however the overwhelming majority of the content that followed was user generated. Burberry launched its TikTok presence with a highly-engaging challenge: The #TBChallenge. Celebrating the launch of the new Thomas Burberry Monochrome assortment, Burberry inspired followers within the U.S. and also the Great Britain to recreate the new Thomas Burberry symbol motif with their hands to unlock a brand new lens.
Meanwhile, Mercedes Benz used TikTok to have interaction with socially-savvy information Z via an in depth campaign to encourage users to come back up with their own interpretation of the disreputable Mercedes Benz star emblem, mistreatment the hashtag #mbstarchallenge. The artistic stigmatization campaign scored Mercedes Benz over 494 million views, 61,600 new followers, and quite 525,000 likes.
Mayer’s challenge is to accelerate brands’ learning curves and encourage them to create larger advertising bets, whilst they’re still aiming to understand the new platform. To do that, he can have to be compelled to promote the ad formats TikTok already offers, like Infeed Native ads, complete Takeovers, and Branded Lenses, whereas developing the platform’s ability to focus on. After all, TikTok doesn’t nevertheless provide a similar subtle capabilities that marketers ar accustomed obtaining from Facebook or Instagram.
He can have to be compelled to convert advertisers that it’s time to create the shift from mistreatment TikTok as a sandbox for promoting experiments to creating TikTok ads associate degree integral a part of the promoting combine — particularly for brands curious about staying culturally relevant and connecting to the customers of tomorrow.
But that’s not all. to urge marketers’ confidence, Mayer ought to more open the TikTok platform for technology partners to supply information and facilitate marketers perceive a campaign’s performance further as their audience and content at scale.
Mayer’s nickname at Disney was “Buzz Lightyear,” and he’s attributable with the explosive growth of Disney+. Frankly, TikTok is that the solely social media network that comes on the point of the size of Facebook and Instagram, and with Mayer at the helm, it’s possible to grow even additional. the corporate is anticipated to rent forty,000 individuals this year, totally on the business development facet. With Mayer at the helm, it’s the platform to look at in 2020.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak is business executive of Socialbakers. He was antecedently CTO at Outbrain, at AVG Technologies, and at Finjan, and in 2000 supported internet application security company Kavado.