How TikTok is transforming video entertainment for brands
What makes TikTok essential for your next video advertising campaign
TikTok is home to a new age of entertainment, defined by media fragmentation and intense competition for viewers. Its foundation of attention-earning content and a welcoming environment for creators, publishers, and brands alike has allowed it to reach more than 170M monthly active users¹—over half of the US population.
The appeal of TikTok lies in its hyper-relevant viewing experience, where users are shown an ever-evolving stream of videos curated to their interests. According to a study by TikTok's Marketing Science team, in partnership with Marketcast, 73% of TikTok users watch whatever the algorithm suggests, 4.6x more than video streaming platforms.²
It's not simply the entertainment value of the content that captures users' attention; it's how that content is presented: full screen, sound on, one video at a time.
This combination of highly personalized content and a distraction-free viewing experience has helped TikTok build a leaned-in audience. In the same study mentioned above, TikTok is 20% more likely to be the sole focus of a user's attention compared to video streaming platforms, and traditional social platforms are 1.1x more likely to be used while multitasking compared to TikTok.²
Why you should add TikTok to your next video campaign
Several recent reports have demonstrated TikTok's ability to foster product discovery, build brand love, reach new audiences, and drive incremental sales.
The findings include:
Discovery: 15% of all product discovery across all media, email, and word of mouth happens on TikTok.³
Incremental audiences: 59% of TikTok impressions on the average campaign reached unique viewers who were un-exposed to the TV portion of the campaign.⁴
ROAS: TikTok offers more than 2x better retail ROAS than linear TV, social media, and OLV for total retail.⁵
Brand building: TikTok ads outperformed digital and TV norms by 15-20% on brand difference, relevance, and persuasion.⁶
TikTok presents a golden opportunity for video advertisers to connect with an incremental, leaned-in audience. By leveraging TikTok's innovative solutions, brands can confidently drive impact at scale.
Tools to drive measurable brand growth on TikTok
TikTok offers a full range of planning tools, video ad formats, and measurement solutions for video advertisers to maximize and evaluate their success on TikTok.
Innovative planning tools
When it comes to planning, marketers face the challenge of identifying the proper budget and media mix to reach their intended audience across different channels. To help with this issue, we created Channel Forecaster, an innovative planning tool designed to help brands incorporate TikTok strategically into their video campaigns.
Channel Forecaster (available through your TikTok rep) leverages our platform's reach data and Nielsen linear TV reach data to forecast cross-channel reach, frequency, and cost metrics for a TikTok + TV advertising campaign compared to a TV-only campaign. It also recommends an ideal budget mix across channels to maximize on-target reach.
Powerful video ad formats
With your custom Channel Forecaster readout, you're ready to activate. An essential ad format to consider is TikTok Pulse. This suite of offerings allows you to secure adjacency to the videos that resonate most with your audiences in a brand-safe environment.
Here's how it breaks down:
Max Pulse: Unlock your campaign's full potential by running your ads adjacent to the top 4% of trending content across all categories on TikTok.
Pulse Lineups: Build brand association with a specific content genre and benefit from contextual priming, with placements alongside the top 4% of trending content across a variety of topics, from broader topics such as Beauty & Personal Care, Sports & Recreation, and Travel to seasonal or cultural moments such as Thanksgiving, Holiday Season, and Back-to-School.
Pulse Premiere: Place your ads alongside official content from premium publisher partners across entertainment, sports, and lifestyle verticals. Pulse Premiere offerings range from evergreen content by networks and leagues like NBCUniversal, Paramount, ABC and the NHL to more specific shows like Saturday Night Live from NBC and official tentpoles like The Met Gala from Vogue.
"At TikTok, we are continuing to invest in our Pulse suite to help put brands next to the platform's most engaging and viewed content that is driving cultural moments as they are happening. From sporting tentpole moments and entertainment 'water cooler' conversations to TikTok-born trends, we’re building the Pulse suite to capture them all."
Effective measurement solutions
Of course, when you've completed your activation, you'll want to understand campaign performance. TikTok's new third-party audience measurement offerings allow you to scale on TikTok confidently. In July, TikTok launched a cross-media reach offering with iSpot.tv in the US. Participating clients receive a post-campaign report detailing the incremental reach of the TikTok portion of their campaign compared to the linear TV portion of the campaign.
In addition to iSpot.tv, US advertisers will soon have access to de-duplicated, on-target reach measurement and audience on-target percentage through Nielsen ONE Ads across all supported platforms (mobile, computer, Linear TV, and CTV).⁷ TikTok's integration within Nielsen ONE Ads will provide transparent, deduplicated, cross-media measurement in one place.
These offerings demonstrate our commitment to providing video advertiser partners with the tools they need to understand the value that TikTok brings to the media mix.
Be what happens next
TikTok has redefined the video advertising landscape in this new age of entertainment. More than just a social media platform, TikTok offers advertisers an engaging environment to connect with a uniquely attentive audience. Brands can leverage TikTok's innovative planning tools, powerful ad formats, and effective measurement solutions to craft impactful campaigns that resonate with users and drive sales. By shifting their mindset and leaning into a TikTok-first strategy, brands keep pace with current digital marketing trends and position themselves to be what happens next, driving and defining the future of video advertising.
Notes
Source: TikTok Internal Data, US, 2024
Source: TikTok Marketing Science Global Entertaining Ads Study (US Results) 2022, conducted by Marketcast
Source: TikTok Marketing Science Post-Purchase Analysis conducted by Fairing, 2022
Source: iSpot.tv meta-analysis, US, 2024 (N=38); expressed as (TikTok Unique Reach/TikTok Total Reach)
Source: Nielsen MMM study over 7 Retailers in Speciality Big Box and Beauty Big Box (US)
Source: TikTok Marketing Science Creative Coding Analysis based on 3,500 TikTok ads that ran from 1/1/2021 - 10/1/2021 representing all major verticals, conducted by Kantar, 2022
Currently in beta. GA tentatively scheduled for Q4 2024.