One brand that has seen a meteoric rise the past several years in prominence, reach, and influence is TikTok. I decided to reach out to someone working directly on the brand today that’s also a leader in the space. Jeff Boron is the Global Head of Marcoms at TikTok and is helping monetize the platform by bringing genuine opportunities to businesses and its user base. We began our conversation at the highest level.
“There's lots of places where it's enhancing relationships. If you were to rewind 20 years and think about people keeping up with their high school friends or even college friends it probably wasn't the same, you didn't have the same means to have that connectivity. I'll never get tired of that. And I think that's such a great advancement when it comes to relationships.”
The good side of tech
While more often we hear about the scary, negative side of tech, Jeff hit on something very profound as we began discussing technology in the world today. The speed, features, and functions of any device, software or platform, continues to advance yet we see the best side of tech come out in its ability to slow us down, breath, and bring us back as a bridge for the human connection.
A brand’s role in society
Today’s environment is fraught with turmoil that if you let it could really serve up an all you can eat buffet of angst-ridden entrées. From the climate crisis, economic uncertainty, political division, culture clashes and a global pandemic. Without question, there’s a lot of things that could bring the psyche of humanity down. Given this landscape I wondered, is there a bigger role that brands should be playing in our lives?
“I started working for an agency that was very focused on this idea of purpose which was an idea that I was intrigued by and fell in love with. This idea of brands not just existing to make money, but existing for some societal purpose instead and the recognition that making money is necessary to pursue that purpose.
Take Whole Foods [for example], you think about their purpose to deliver healthy nutrition. When you have a business that's so singularly focused like that, I think the purpose can be more clear and easier to communicate and to act upon.”
influence on culture
While Marketing 101 is all about “knowing your customer” and your “brand purpose” it’s easier said than done and articulating your brands value to galvanize internal and external stakeholders alike can be an overlooked step in building a meaningful brand. What impressed me during my conversation with Jeff is the focus and simplicity the TikTok brand has, and as a result how it has begun to reshape aspects of our culture.
“We have a mission to inspire creativity and bring joy.”
The amazing thing during 2020, which was such a tough tough year for so many, TikTok was said to have been one of the last sunny spots on the internet. I think that sort of positivity that pervades the platform is really attractive and brings people together and I think it's honestly one of the reasons why we've had such an amazing growth trajectory, in terms of our user base and on the business side of things as well.”
“The people that are part of the platform, to me are positive, they're supportive. They're inclusive, and wildly creative. That's really the secret sauce about our platform - its people's creativity to use this environment and to express themselves in a brief way but as creative as one can possibly imagine.”
If you follow music, you know that Tiktok has had a sizable influence on that industry in recent years. Music and sound are a critical aspect of the TikTok video viewing experience. Jeff talked a little about the role ‘sound on’ plays for the platform and its upside for marketers.
“’Sound on’ is a defining characteristic of both user and brand TikTok videos. Narration, sound effects and of course music are a huge part of the experience. Research has shown that a high percentage of TikTokers prefer content from brands that features original sounds, and remember a brand better when they feature songs that they like in their videos. So marketers always need to be thinking about how to leverage sound and music to get the most out of the platform.”
Experimentation & risk taking
When it comes to an innovator’s mindset, start-ups typically dive into uncertainty headfirst. They don’t have the institutional bad habits, risk averse culture and legacy thinking that can sometimes paralyze brands into irrelevance. When you talk about established brands not very often do you find ones that operate with a challenger mentality however, it is possible, so long as you have strong leadership and a clear understanding of your purpose. During our conversation, Jeff reflected on both established and emerging brands who are experimenting with TikTok.
Established Brands
“I think there are some brands that are absolutely crushing it. The NFL for example, does a really, really great job on our platform. The Washington Post is another one that's amazing. They just have such an out of the box approach. It's basically this one guy, his whole job is to create TikTok’s and they're hysterical. He's going to introduce the brand to a whole new generation of people in a very unique way.”
Emerging Brands
“You see these smaller brands like The Coldest Water trending on the platform, they are having success by the way that they tap into trends, really embrace the idea of “sound on”, (a defining characteristic of TikTok is the way every video is enhanced by featuring sound: music, sound effects, people talking straight to camera, or narration) which is so critical to TikTok, as a way to engage with their audience and the community that exists around them.
We have a video series right now called Small Wins, which is about small businesses that have had great success on the platform. One story in particular that I love is this business called Carpet Repair Guys. In his TikTok videos, the owner Josh just tells his story and shows people the process of repairing carpets. And as he described, it was something oddly satisfying for people. They became sort of mystified by it. And next thing you know he's got hundreds of thousands of followers and his business is booming. I love stories like that. He's just showing up as himself and showing people [things like] how you take a massive stain out of a carpet or replace a section of carpet. And it's fun, we have a lot of things like that across a lot of different industries.”
Building loyalty & remaining relevant
Every brand marketer dreams of building a passionate fan base that keeps coming back to experience its product while sharing brand love with their network. TikTok undeniably is winning this part of the game. Jeff and I discussed the intentionality and focus TikTok puts on its experience to build loyalty.
“With a lot of products or services that have rapid success, like we've had, typically they're satisfying a need that was unmet, maybe also unrecognized. For us, we're a short form mobile video platform. It's the tools that we provide, the ability to create the content that's very simple for people. But what I think really resonated is how people have expressed themselves with it, how they share their vulnerability and show that sort of slice of life.
During the pandemic, there wasn't some elaborate production set that people were on, people were shooting these videos in their homes and sharing very relatable moments and situations that people were like, yes, I see myself in that. You couple that with this amazing algorithm that learns very quickly what you're interested in and what you're passionate about, and you have a magical combination.”
Studying Generation Z for nearly ten years, one challenge that comes across is the fickleness of social media with people moving from MySpace, to Facebook, to Instagram to Snapchat and now to TikTok. In the tech industry, the frequency of these cycles seems to hit even more rapidly which is why I wanted to understand how is TikTok working to stay in front?
“The way that people are consuming content on the platform, leads me to believe that we're not a flash in the pan, we have this unique combo of an immersive experience, the sound on piece, and these communities that you just can't find anywhere else. And then you add on that that algorithm, which is truly remarkable. But we need to stay aggressive; we need to keep evolving the platform, make it better, both for users, and on the business side.”
Iterating for growth
With any product, having a renovation and innovation strategy is critical but with a tech offering, it’s a mandate. I wanted to dig a little deeper into TikTok’s approach as they look to continue their ascension of growth – what new technology are they integrating into the platform? and how are they working with businesses to monetize this model?
“We have a product called Branded Effects, which is an AR offering. It uses AR to show off a product or a feature, or some other fun thing that is really engaging for the audience. Those are custom solutions that we offer, there's been some really creative stuff that's been done. Here’s an example of how BOSS leveraged our AR branded effects and reached 2.9 Billion views #MerryBOSSmas
Also, we have something that we've coined called ‘community commerce’, which is this idea that word of mouth marketing that's driven by creators, influencers on our platform, that really know how to make that authentic content, they've got great followings. They're the ones leading the charge on making recommendations and asking people to think about products and services that they might want to check out.
There's a hashtag called #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt it's connected to the idea I was describing of people feeling compelled to buy something because they've heard a great recommendation, or someone's demonstrated a product. It’s not polished commercials that work on our platform, its people providing their testimonials and their experience with products, whether that's through a creator or the brand talking about itself. That's the kind of stuff that resonates with our audience.”
Advice on building brands of the future
A brilliant agency strategist taught me earlier in my career to anticipate trends of the future, you don’t necessarily want to talk to people living in the need state today, rather you want to understand from people who will arrive there in 5 years. To help inspire those of you looking to build the brands of tomorrow I wanted to learn from Jeff’s world what successful brands look like in the future?
“There's been this evolution from doing the things that you think people want you to do to simply being your authentic self. Whether it's TikTok or just in general, I think brands that can be in touch with who they are, show up, be themselves and attract people, are going to be the ones that win. If you think about the most beloved brands, I would argue those are the ones that are most in touch with their authentic selves. They may find new and creative ways to express it, but they don't stray from their core identity. They're consistent with it. And that in a nutshell is what branding is all about to me, but I think especially for younger generation, they crave that authenticity, that's a currency that matters to them. And I think that's true for people overall.”