The brains behind your favourite TikTok campaigns
When brands show their human side, they create genuine connections with TikTok users. But how can brands authentically tap into that human side and show that they understand their audience and the platform? A recent trend, 'Who Will Gru Be Tonight', led to TikTok users sharing the brand accounts they run alongside their own, sparking curiosity about the people behind our favourite brand accounts.
This kind of transparency resonates with consumers – showing brands' willingness to embrace new ways of thinking and cultural crossovers. In this blog post, we go behind the brands and talk to the creatives behind the accounts. We look at the ideas behind their viral campaigns and explore the value for brands to have people within their teams who are genuine users and lovers of TikTok – people who can make your brand an authentic part of the cultural conversation, not just a fleeting viral moment.
Growing brand love and engagement with Gen Z for KFC & Uncovered
KFC tapped into the emerging "Oil Up" trend and created truly native, platform-first creative, driving an incredible amount of conversation and connection in the comments; the brand saw over 6K comments within the first 24 hours. KFC's campaign shows just how effective tapping into platform trends can be for brands seeking to grow brand love and affinity.
We speak to Elly Viner, Creative Director, Uncovered about their TikTok Ad Award-winning campaign.
Can you give us an overview of the 'Oiled Up' campaign and why it was successful?
Over the months before Oil Up, we’d been building a highly engaged audience with consistent, culture-first creative. As a result, the rapport between our audience and KFC’s ‘admin’ (AKA the Uncovered team behind the account) has become one of genuine community and connection.
Cut to a couple of months ago, when the team identified an emerging trend, ‘Oil Up’. This is a slang term used by Gen Z/Alpha and, depending on the context, it can mean different things: applying oil to your body, a cheeky innuendo, words of affection, an absurd comment… the list goes on. The Oil Up trend was taking TikTok by storm, and our audience was begging Admin to do it. So we did.
The execution was paramount to Oil Up's success – taking everything great about the trend and adding a topspin of originality with high-impact production, thumb-stopping visuals and ownable KFC moments. With two teaser films ahead of the hero launch, we built a mass sense of anticipation and buzz in our audience; so by the time Oil Up dropped, we were primed for great results.
How did you find pitching this idea to the client? It’s creatively brave and perhaps unexplainable to people who aren't embedded into the platform's culture. How did you ensure they trusted you to go through with the idea?
We’re very lucky to have a socially minded client who’s willing to take risks; and again, in the months before Oil Up, we’d built their trust in the high performance of Gen Z memes and culture-first content. Once the seed of the idea had been planted, the team pulled examples of ‘oiling up’ mentions in the comments, as well as deep diving into its influence across the platform – we ensure everything we do is backed by data and founded on insight. Calculated risks over risky chances.
The audience is where we start when it comes to ideation: what are they watching, posting, commenting on. In tandem, we’re considering the brand objective: what story do we need to tell? What objective do we need to land? Finding the apex where these two components meet is both the challenge and the opportunity.
What trends and takes inspired the idea behind this campaign?
We'd seen great examples both in UGC and from other brands, so the 20% of originality was extremely important in cutting through. When developing creative, we always come back to the North Star; “when everyone else zigs, we zag” – i.e taking trends and popular formats, and making them distinctly KFC.
What research process does your creative team adopt when developing TikTok campaign ideas?
The audience is where we start when it comes to ideation: what are they watching, posting, commenting on. In tandem, we’re considering the brand objective: what story do we need to tell? What objective do we need to land? Finding the apex where these two components meet is both the challenge and the opportunity.
We continually analyse the data and results across our content to identify what’s resonating the most and where we could do better – iterating similar trends and formats that should reap the same rewards. But ultimately, it comes down to listening to our audience and understanding them on a deep level.
What's the value of brands having people within their teams who are genuine users and lovers of TikTok?
For us as an agency, the most fundamental way we stay on trend is our team. Being immersed in the world of social is a core requirement of any role at Uncovered and it's that inherent knowledge of trends that keeps our finger on the pulse. We’d recommend that brands adopt a similar mindset for any social roles in their team and in the marketing team in general. Social is where culture is happening!
Uncovered is a TikTok Marketing Partner. Learn more about them here.
Proving the value of creative trust with Weekday
Weekday’s campaign sought to go beyond typical fashion brand messaging by connecting young audiences with genuine advice and lived experience from older generations. The success of this campaign shows that the TikTok community values creative trust, and highlights how authentic TikTok engagement can drive meaningful brand connections.
We speak to Julia Borggen, Social Media Manager, Weekday about their campaign.
Tell us the story behind this campaign?
We wanted to build upon the fact that young people are seeking deeper meaning about their identities, and since fashion brand communication is usually more superficial, we wanted to cater to our objective with real experience and guidance from people further down the road of life regarding more meaningful topics. We also thought that this unexpected casting for a youthful brand like Weekday would create interest. We did one more polished version of the content focusing on stories from the talent's lives and how they overcame the toughest challenges in their lives, and it ended up really beautiful and emotional. The other version was a more light-hearted TikTok-first version focusing more on the contrast of dressing elders in youthful Weekday looks.
Had you seen any trends that inspired the idea behind this campaign?
We were inspired by the filterless, personal, and honest story-sharing culture on TikTok, and we also aimed with our unexpected casting to create interesting contrasts to the general perception of the brand, in our case – being super youth-centred normally.
On TikTok, the messages that cut through the noise are the ones that are actually helpful and valuable to the reached audience.
As someone who uses TikTok yourself, did you feel like other users like you could connect to this campaign? Why/why not?
I think what makes people truly connect to this type of content for me personally is the raw feeling of authenticity – which is something we really put at the core of this project. We actually didn’t know what they were going to tell us before we started shooting so what you see is the first and raw version of them sharing their really vulnerable life experiences.
As the person behind this concept, how did you find pitching this idea to your colleagues? As the people featured within the campaign are not Weekday's typical target audience, were people receptive to the idea?
My colleague Shahin and I had been trusted to create whatever concepts we believed in for the social channels, so when pitching this idea, I felt like the general response was positive and trusting. I feel blessed to be at a workplace like Weekday where we value each other’s judgement and expertise to such great extent.
What's the value of brands having people within their teams who are genuine users and lovers of TikTok?
I believe it’s absolutely crucial in order for brands to create impact in their channels. The traditional approach of running a business is pushing a flattering narrative about your brand or product, but on TikTok, the messages that cut through the noise are the ones that are actually helpful and valuable to the reached audience. You have to be much more mindful of who you’re speaking to, what they truly care about, and what is going on in their lives rather than focusing on what you want to say or what product you want to sell.
To read more about the trends and brands taking over the FYP, check out our Trends Digest Zine. For more creative inspiration, explore the Creative Centre and sign up for our newsletter.