What we know about marketing on TikTok

Source: WARC Best Practice, January 2022

Downloaded from WARC

Explores the latest best practice guidance around using TikTok, a mobile video app, as a platform for
marketing communications.

TikTok, or Douyin as it is known in China, is a fast-growing mobile video app with a global userbase
among teen and young adult audiences. Brands are beginning to use TikTok to engage users through
native video content, particularly in the form of participatory ‘hashtag challenge’ campaigns. However,
numerous controversies have called into question the safety of the environment, both for brands and
users.

Definitions
Known as Douyin in its native China, TikTok launched in 2016 and has enjoyed rapid growth since parent
company ByteDance acquired social media platform Music.ly in 2017. According to ByteDance figures, TikTok
has more than a billion monthly users globally.

The app enables users to easily create and share 15-second vertical video clips, and consume and comment on
UGC through an AI-powered, feed-style interface which learns the types of content users are most likely to
enjoy. Users are encouraged to be creative when producing video, and can utilise tools to speed up or slow
down footage, implement filters and overlay music clips.

Brands can engage with TikTok users through both organic reach and paid advertising, as well as working with
influencers. Ads can be bought on CPC, CPV or CPM models directly for activity in most western markets. There
is also targeting available for profiles such as age, interest and CRM lists. Ad formats available on TikTok
include:

Discovery page takeovers: The first content a user sees upon opening the app, designed for mass
reach. Typically a three-second image or 3.5-second video. Best for delivering reach and awareness.
In-feed native video: Five- to 15-second full-screen video ads, used by brands to drive engagement,
such as clicks through to an external URL.
 Branded lenses: Fully-customisable 2D or 3D AR lenses, produced in-house by TikTok’s design team,
similar to Snap’s Sponsored Lens product.
Hashtag challenge: Brands ask users to participate in a UGC challenge, recording themselves completing
a specific action or task (eg lip-syncing to a song). A way for brands to tap into TikTok’s culture of
creativity. Hashtag challenges appear within the app’s Discover page and can be reached by clicking on
hashtags within both paid and organic videos.
Hashtag plus challenge: An extended version of the format, through which users can also purchase
products featured in the campaign directly via a separate tab on TikTok.

A full list of advertising options can be found on the TikTok Ads page.

Key insights
1. TikTok fosters culture of ‘community commerce’

A WARC whitepaper, created in partnership with TikTok and Publicis Groupe, defined ‘community commerce’
as a type of social commerce which sits at the intersection of community, shopping and entertainment. Social
media has disrupted the purchase journey, which is now led by spontaneous discovery and inspiration, and no
longer follows the traditional path. To maximise opportunities, brands must make the most of technologies that
facilitate a seamless community commerce experience.

TikTok is developing a suite of tools – called TikTok Shopping – to enable brands to shorten the purchase
funnel, and potentially drive users from discovery to purchase with only a single piece of content.

While creators remain at the core of the platform, their activity is being used in new ways – promoting brand
discovery and purchase and the development of what it terms ‘community commerce’. Many TikTokers have
make unplanned purchases based on what they discover, and they tend to tell others: as of January 2022, the
hashtag ‘#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt’ has had over eight billion views

Research found that 88% of TikTok users discover new content while on the app, and one in two discover new
products and brands in the process. 91% of users take some sort of action after seeing content; a quarter have
researched or purchased the product they saw advertised. 73% give product recommendations to family and
friends – and this amplification effect is a crucial part of ‘community commerce’.

Read more in: From discovery to purchase: The role of community commerce, TikTok and the rise of
‘community commerce’, TikTok moves on e-commerce and Walmart and TikTok partner for shoppable
live-streamed event

2. Smaller brands stand to benefit from TikTok’s acceleration into e-commerce

TikTok’s acceleration into e-commerce promises many opportunities – for small and medium-sized businesses,
especially. In Q4 2021 alone, consumers worldwide spent $824m in TikTok, more than double the amount
spend during the same period in 2020. The app has released a flurry of features to link its content platform to
commercial returns for advertisers, from collection ads (which showcase a range of products on sale) to dynamic
product ads, populated by a product feed, as well as augmented reality features such as a virtual try-on. This
makes it easy for small businesses to compete with bigger ones with slick and easy-to-build e-commerce
shopfronts. These shopfronts offer ease of set-up, levelling the playing field so smaller brands without the
budgets to buy fame across traditional media channels can compete.

Read more in: What brands need to know about shopping on TikTok and the discovery commerce boom
and Consumer spending in TikTok grew 77% last year

3. TikTok wants to make it easier for brands to find relevant creators

The low cost of production and ease of editing on TikTok has fuelled a content creation boom, particularly
among young users. TikTok is determined to retain those creators, and to help them to partner with relevant
brands. At its inaugural TikTok World event in September 2021, the platform announced a new version of its
Creator Marketplace, a self-serve portal allowing marketers to find creators that best align with their interests. It
also launched a Creator Marketplace API, enabling third-party businesses like Captiv8, Influential and Whalar to
manage the end-to-end process of creator marketing on TikTok. Brands can post campaign briefs to creators
using Open Application Campaigns. TikTok also used the event to unveil a host of new measurement tool for
advertisers.

Read more in: TikTok content creators: The new kings and queens of social

4. Opportunities exist for B2B brands on TikTok

Consumer brands are not the only ones finding a place on TikTok – increasingly, business-to-business
advertisers are also using the platform to engage their audiences. Software company Sage ran the UK’s first
B2B campaign on TikTok to celebrate entrepreneurs. Designed to inspire confidence after a testing 2020, the
‘#Bossit2021’ Challenge invited TikTok’s small business (SMB) community to share videos expressing how they
are ‘bossing it’ this year. Sage made full use of TikTok’s advertising formats to maximise impact, including a
Branded Hashtag Challenge, bespoke music and a premium TopView placement, the first video everyone sees
when they open the app. The campaign achieved 8.2 billion views and one million entries into its challenge.

Read more in: Bossing B2B marketing on TikTok

5. UGC on TikTok is more influential than paid advertising

An emotional analysis study by Realeyes comparing viewer responses to four different video types across 11
brands: TikTok user-generated content (UGC) videos, TikTok ads, Facebook ads and conventional ads. Based
on Realeyes’ quality score – which measures each video’s ability to capture, retain and encode emotion among
viewers – TikTok UGC videos led the way, and both TikTok video types ranked far higher than the other video
types; the UGC videos performed 21% better than Facebook ads and 68% better than conventional ads. The
study illustrated the power of authenticity, as the UGC ads demonstrated that users are often better at creating
compelling content about brands than the brands themselves. TikTok UGC videos tied with conventional ads for
holding viewers' attention without distraction the longest in the first seconds, but Facebook ads did the best job
at retaining attention at the 15-second mark. TikTok UGC videos and brand videos far outstripped the other
video types in terms of encoding emotion. The UGC videos scored 3.6 times better than Facebook ads and 8.5
times greater than conventional ads.

Read more in: TikTok UGC videos about brands outperform other video ad types
6. Hashtag challenges are an effective way of creating engagement

For brands looking to exploit the entertaining and light-hearted nature of TikTok, its unique sponsored ‘hashtag
challenge’ format is the most attractive paid format. Hashtag challenges are campaigns directed at Generation
Z, prompting users to post videos of themselves with the brand’s hashtag visible. Brands usually encourage
users to show off their product or participate in a crafted viral video, like lip-syncing to a song or jingle.

With more brands experimenting with TikTok’s popular Hashtag Challenge format, marketers must optimise their
approach to ensure that their campaign stands out from the crowd. Kantar analysed 60 branded Hashtag
Challenges from advertisers including Walmart, River Island, Nestle and Mucinex. It found that advertisers
should avoid setting ‘crazy, impossible’ dance routines that users will struggle to remember. Simple is better.

Cosmetics brand e.l.f created a viral TikTok campaign to boost brand awareness in the US and overcome
revenue stagnation. It identified TikTok as a key component of boosting brand affinity among its Gen Z target
audience and studied top TikTok trends, including music styles and viral videos. Partnering Movers + Shakers,
e.l.f created an original song and TikTok hashtag challenge around core brand positioning. It became the fastest
branded hashtag challenge to pass a billion views, reaching five billion, and the music video surpassed two
million views in two weeks.

Read more in: TikTok: Ten lessons for brands creating Hashtag Challenges, A guide to TikTok for
brands, The anatomy of a TikTok meme and e.l.f. Cosmetics: #eyeslipsface TikTok Challenge

7. TikTok enjoys high engagement and loyalty among young consumers

A factor behind the success of TikTok is that it is designed to feed content based on users’ interests. A real-time
optimisation algorithm serves video based on the individual user’s interactions, like the length of watched
videos, or whether he or she has liked, commented or shared – always feeding users with more relevant content
to keep them on the platform and keep them interacting with the content they like.

TikTok retains user attention through three primary types of viral video content:

Dance to the music: Consumers create their own moves or gestures to music. TikTok has helped many
songs become hits, even on other social platforms.
Lifestyle moments: Sharing the unexpected in the typical TikTok humour and style.
Celebrities: Many celebrities have embraced TikTok as a place to share content with their fans. Where
Weibo is becoming more commercial and a place for the official fan pages, on TikTok, celebs can relax and
share a moment of fun and play with their fans.

Read more in: TikTok: Understanding the only global social platform and US teens use TikTok as much
as Facebook

8. TikTok users expect spontaneity and ‘fun’ from brand content

When launching a campaign on TikTok – and particularly a hashtag challenge – brands are advised to follow
the ‘WTF’ (Wish-Try-Fun) method, as outlined by TikTok Japan’s X Design Center:

WISH: Social causes invite engagement. TikTok’s own research has found “huge gaps” between the 16-21 and
29-35 age groups: Gen Z consumers, for instance, are 10.4% more likely to care about social issues than their
older counterparts.

TRY: Every experience should be new. Users on TikTok are more likely to embrace change, with an increase of
8.2% over non-users according to TikTok’s research. Users also want to try something new, 4.5% more so than
non-users.

FUN: A non-negotiable ingredient. The research found that TikTok users are more likely to be of an optimistic
disposition, and 5.6% more likely to spend money on having fun than non-users.

Read more in: How TikTok reaches Gen Z in Japan with WTF hashtag challenges

9. Music and dance are integral to TikTok usage

From its origins as Music.ly, a social platform in which users created short lip-sync videos, music and dance
have been central to the content shared on TikTok. The app is responsible for launching musicians like No.1
Billboard-charting artist Lil Nas X with his hit ‘Old Town Road’, which originated as a TikTok meme. Brands
succeeding on TikTok are often doing so by embracing this musical theme – though it would be wrong of
advertisers to ignore the large proportion of users consuming content with the sound on mute.

In India, Pepsi used a Hashtag Challenge to launch its own signature dance, the ‘#SwagStepChallenge’, in an
effort to regain brand love and relevance among its key 15- to 30-year-old target audience. Using a combination
of paid media and influencer partnerships, Pepsi managed to generate more than 50 pieces of original video
content and 17.8 billion impressions, as well as 130 million views of its campaign anthem on YouTube.

Nike, meanwhile, rolled out a campaign inspired by the creativity of young women in Milan, Italy. The sportswear
brand paired TikTok influencers with Nike elite athletes with the aim of co-creating a series of branded dance
challenges. For instance, Italian boxer Federica Monacelli showed Martina Picardi the ropes of her combat
sport, resulting in a punch-style dance move. All three of Nike’s challenges were hosted on TikTok's first ever
campaign page and supported with in-platform ads, leading to 90 million views, 540,000 likes, and 46,000
participants in the challenges.

Read more in: Pepsi: Breaking the Internet with Swag and How! and Nike: Nothing can stop us – what
next when female empowerment is yesterday’s rallying cry?

10. Brand safety remains a concern for TikTok advertisers

TikTok has encountered particular brand safety difficulties in India – its second most-popular market after China
– where it has faced a clampdown by regulators concerned by what they see as “unlawful content”. Early in
2019, a High Court in Madras determined the app was encouraging pornography and other illicit content, and
ordered it to be removed from app stores for a two-week period. Regulatory authorities in the US have
also fined TikTok US$5.7m for violating child privacy laws, and in 2018 Indonesia banned it outright.

To catch up with the user protection and brand safety measures undertaken by the social platforms like
Facebook and YouTube, TikTok set out updated community guidelines in which it made clear the categories
of videos it won’t allow. These include those that promote terrorism or hate speech, depict illegal drug use,
feature violent, graphic or dangerous content or seek to mislead people about elections and other civic
processes.

Read more in: India's regulators plan clamp-down on Chinese social media apps, TikTok faces fresh
calls for ban in India and TikTok to address brand safety fears

11. Political advertising is banned on TikTok

TikTok has publicly stated that it will not allow paid ads that promote a political agenda on its platform,
formalising a policy it had first introduced ahead of India’s elections in 2019. In a blog post, TikTok’s VP of
global business solutions Blake Chandlee stated that the nature of paid political ads “is not something we
believe fits the TikTok platform experience”. As such, it will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a
candidate, current leader, political party or group or issue at the federal, state or local level – including election-
related ads, advocacy ads or issue ads.

Read more in: TikTok reiterates ban on paid political ads

More on this topic

WARC Category Intelligence: What's working in social

WARC Best Practice: The WARC Guide to brands and the creator economy

WARC Best Practice: What we know about e-commerce and social commerce

WARC Best Practice: What we know about online video audiences

WARC Best Practice: What we know about online video effectiveness

Further reading
Influencer marketing: Best practices, trends & Covid’s impact

CMO Conversations: Trevor Johnson, Head of Marketing - Global Business Solutions, Europe, TikTok

Marketers think TikTok advertising is innovative, but less trustworthy

How TikTok caught the #SeaShanty wave, putting out an ad in four days

Master: Kraft Heinz Master Soy Sauce equity campaign

Here’s what makes TikTok tick for Gen Z

How Arby’s transformed one TikTok video in a viral triumph

TikTok in APAC: There’s more to it than meets the eye

Gushers / Fruit by the Foot: #BlackVoicesCreate

Nyala: How OCBC NISP promoted financial responsibility through small changes with Nyala's
#SAVE20 campaign on TikTok

Samsung Galaxy A Series: #danceAwesome

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