From Alix Earle to Tinx, TikTok creators at Cannes Lions this year were, well, everywhere, a signifier of the strong presence TikTok and its users have established in the world of marketing, particularly for retail brands.
That’s why Sofia Hernandez, global head of business marketing at TikTok, told Retail Brew her top priority is to help brands show up on the platform in a way that the app’s community will embrace.
When Hernandez joined TikTok four years ago, she said the video sharing platform was considered “experimental” and “still trying to get brands’ attention.” Then, there was a pivot around 2021, she said, when brand CMOs started really thinking about the importance of utilizing TikTok for their businesses. It hasn’t been easy for CMOs, she noted, who are being asked to “be really creative again” rather than follow a data-driven approach that they’d grown accustomed to.
But it could be worth it: When brands take a TikTok-first approach, their purchase intent rises 37%, and brand favorability jumps 38%, according to the app, and 79% of users say they want to see brands on the platform. That’s only if they “do it right,” Hernandez said, so she broke down how brands can become the main character of the For You page.
A new POV: That bump in TikTok’s popularity ultimately “democratized creativity” by giving everyone, including brands, the chance to connect with consumers and take a fresh look at how they’d been targeting them (like not making assumptions simply based on demographics), Hernandez said. This in turn changed consumers’ expectations for brands.
“People just started demanding more of brands, especially retail,” she said. “‘Yes, of course, I want to know what the product does. I want to know that it works. I want it to be at a price that I want to pay. And I’d love to know about any promotions.’ That’s not enough anymore. That’s just table stakes. Now, I actually have to feel like I like you as a brand, I believe in you as a brand, and I want to feel like I’m part of what you believe in, what you stand for.”
Creator partnerships have moved far beyond “influencer marketing…1.0,” where brands essentially hand a creator a script, she said. Now, brands have to find which creators will resonate with their consumers.
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“The biggest concern is creativity. For most brands, what I hear is, ‘It’s a little scary to put ourselves out there,’” she said. This often requires marketers to throw out their advertising rulebook, whether that be the belief that the creator with the most followers will get them the most engagement or that videos need a standard beginning, middle, and end (one of TikTok’s 2024 trends for marketers is “storytelling unhinged,” Hernandez noted.)
Hernandez pointed to Procter & Gamble, a company which has taken to TikTok with its menstrual care brands, tampon maker Tampax and pad brand Always, as an example. She noted P&G has taken risks in depicting its menstrual care products on the app, like showing a man using a maxi pad to clean up a mess.
“It was so great to watch them be creatively brave,” she said. “You have to be okay with the level of risk. We just haven’t done that in the past. We’re so risk averse in the marketing industry. We’ve seen some brands go down for some missteps, but on TikTok, there’s a high tolerance for brands experimenting.”
Be so for real: In brand marketing, the word “authenticity” is thrown around a lot (Alix Earle’s Cannes panel was literally called “Now trending: #Authenticity”). For Hernandez, the most authentic efforts from brands are those that step outside their comfort zones. She pointed to Chipotle, whose popular TikToks over the past few years have simply shown behind-the-scenes of workers in the kitchen making the food—once a rarity in the food world which typically relies on food styling to create a picture-perfect appearance.
“You’re engaging the community,” Hernandez said. “The community is falling in love with you because they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re being real. You’re being authentic.’”
And one last piece of seemingly obvious advice: Ultimately, to understand what kind of content will connect with TikTokers, senior level brand marketers need to, well, be on TikTok, and not just have their agencies tell them what’s going viral, Hernandez said.
“There are a lot of CMOs like, ‘Oh yeah, my teenager is on TikTok.’ And I’m like, ‘But you’re not. How could you possibly know what it’s about and build a marketing campaign if you’re not actually in it?’”