Intuit QuickBooks

The Objective

Intuit, the global technology platform that makes QuickBooks, wanted to celebrate the resilience of small businesses following a trying year for many due to the pandemic. The team behind Intuit QuickBooks, which helps small and medium-sized businesses get paid fast, manage capital, pay employees and manage their books with confidence, looked to TikTok as a way to celebrate small business victories while driving awareness of their products and services among their target market.

The Solution

The QuickBooks team launched a dynamic campaign featuring a Branded Hashtag Challenge with 2D Branded Effect and custom music to honor small businesses for pursuing their dreams and overcoming challenging times. The  #QuickBooksVictoryPose encouraged users to strike a victory pose to celebrate small businesses, welcoming small business owners and supporters alike. The Hashtag Challenge inspired owners to name their proudest achievements, while supporters shared how and why they support small businesses.

To enable deeper interactivity with the Hashtag Challenge, QuickBooks leveraged TikTok's 2D Branded Effect, leading to an impressive 90 million impressions. By combining a custom sound with a 2D Branded Effect, the campaign hooked users' attention and drove participation in the challenge. Sound on TikTok captivates users and helps brands show up authentically while encouraging users to join in on the fun. As a result, QuickBooks's Hashtag Challenge official video brought in over 21 million views, greatly exceeding benchmarks.

The QuickBooks team also partnered with TikTok creators and big-name celebrities to bring attention to the campaign and inspire participation. The campaign highlighted influential small business owners like award-winning dog grooming shop owner  @gabrielfeitosagroomer. Gabriel joyously shared big wins from his success as a small business owner like showcasing his work on national television. Meanwhile, celebrities like chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay and actress and business owner Jessica Alba called on the TikTok community to get up and celebrate small businesses by participating in the Hashtag Challenge. Additionally, QuickBooks extended the reach of the creators' TikToks with Spark Ads, a native ad format that allows brands to boost the organic videos of other creators. This allowed them to show up authentically while showcasing real-life victories among small business owners.

The Results

The #QuickBooksVictoryPose gave the TikTok community something to celebrate, and they showed up. The creators' videos inspired an impressive amount of user-generated content, leading to 1.4 million video creations by 767,000 users. Most notably, a post-campaign analysis of the user-generated content showed that 56% of Hashtag Challenge participants were small business owners.

Extending their brand presence to TikTok allowed QuickBooks to connect with their target audience in a meaningful way while continuing to show up as a strong advocate for small businesses. The combination of a Hashtag Challenge and Branded Effect delivered the awareness they strived for with 2.4 billion global views. In addition, a post-campaign Brand Lift Study showed a 3.5% increase in brand awareness and a 3.1% lift in brand association. And while the campaign was US-focused, it reached users worldwide, elevating awareness for QuickBooks products and services across the globe. Small biz is back, and it knows no bounds.