Mission possible: Four steps to make marketing teams more effective

Marketers today are challenged by new tools, content trends, and of course, the proliferation of AI among other complications. A report by TikTok in partnership with Ipsos attempts to provide a framework for the modern marketer. Developed based on a quantitative survey amongst n=1,500 consumers across Asia Pacific and interviews with leading CXOs and brand experts, the report highlights four key missions to guide marketers to achieve maximum effectiveness. While one size will not fit all, marketers should keep these guiding principles in mind as they navigate planning, creative, activation, and measurement.

Mission 1: Cultivate new growth

Growth is about converting current demand as well as acquiring new consumers. Popular acquisition strategies include winning consumers from the competition, becoming an enticing choice for first-time users, and increasing purchase and usage from occasional buyers.

These strategies are best brought to life on platforms like TikTok — a valuable avenue for search and discovery.

Even while acquiring new users, brands must remain connected with existing consumers. According to the survey, 77% of consumers will recommend a brand or product to others. Leveraging the power of creators can elevate existing consumers to superfan levels. Laura Henshaw, CEO & co-founder of Australia-based wellness app Kic said, “We ensure the creators we work with genuinely love the brand and are an active part of our community. Authenticity is key — sharing a personal journey. This genuine connection helps us reach audiences who could align with our values.”

TikTok is found to increase brand affinity by 6.4%, increase new-to-brand users by 4.4%, and drive acquisition of low-frequency category users by 7.5%.

Case study: How Love, Bonito uses trendjacking to connect with and grow its community

Singapore-based clothing company Love, Bonito has evolved into one of Southeast Asia’s largest omnichannel fashion destinations. It recently hit over 110,000 followers on TikTok. The platform is among the brand’s key communications touchpoints and provides the opportunity to highlight Love, Bonito’s personality via its trendjacking nature. The brand also uses TikTok to engage with its community in creative ways — including comments — leading to trust and loyalty.

Dione Song, CEO of Love, Bonito, said: "While TikTok is known to primarily attract a younger demographic, the majority of our follower base is our main target audience — 25 to 34-year-olds. We have also seen an increase in new fans from the Philippines, who constitute the largest pie of our existing follower base.”

Love, Bonito uses #teamLB for trendjacking posts which potentially humanise the brand, build audience familiarity, and create relatable, engaging content. In addition, it leverages trending soundbites and ‘creator search insights’ for suggested content gaps in fashion to better understand topics its followers are searching for. The brand also reposts user-generated content to showcase its outfits on everyday women, compared to editorial models.

So, to recap, your first mission should consist of balancing your existing user base with new users, influencing those who make household purchases, and partnering with platforms that enable a fresh marketing approach.

Mission 2: Captivate the depths of attention

In an ultra-saturated media landscape, memorable content is key. Such content emerges on the back of strong creative assets — whether brand-owned or creator-led. Besides having a good product, the positive energy associated with your brand should carry over during purchase. Authentic content should not feel like an ad. Two simple ways to do this are to engage in brand challenges and directly connect with audiences to keep a brand top-of-mind.

Gina McKinnon, content CEO for Omnicom Media Group APAC, said that brands should make content that is purpose-fit for TikTok: “Brands should engage creators or think like creators. Always remember that consumers go to TikTok for entertainment. At times, brands are too focused on what they want to say (talk at) rather than how consumers want to be spoken to (talk with).” 

TikTok captures short- and long-term impact in the first few seconds, so it is essential to hook in a user from the get-go. Veteran marketer Ashish Verma, with experience across research and FMCG, and currently global director for strategy and insights at Restaurant Brands International highlighted the importance of media strategy, and said, “TikTok is a great avenue for story telling because of its high entertainment value. Entertaining ads work best there because they do not break the flow of videos on the platform.”

Case study: How Kic’s attention grabbing strategies on TikTok help it move past being ‘just another fitness brand’
Kic uses TikTok to bring personality, humour, and authenticity to its brand, said CEO and co-founder Laura Henshaw. The fitness brand shares content that resonates and builds stronger connections with its community on TikTok. Henshaw added, “This channel allows us to be more playful and less polished, showing the more human side of Kic.”

To draw audience attention, Kic’s content includes behind the scenes invitations to campaign shoots or participating in brand partnerships. Employee generated content (EGC) drives engagement and makes the community feel a part of Kic’s story.

Attention can also be harnessed via teasers to build hype. Henshaw said, “We ran a weekend-long campaign where we swapped out profile pictures and dropped Taylor Swift-like Easter egg hints and clues, leading up to the launch of our Kic Concierge — one of our most out of the box campaigns captured by creative agency Bullfrog.” This approach generated a lot of excitement and anticipation — clocking in over a million views and hit 90% of the target in less than 48 hours.

 Kic differentiates itself from other fitness brands by tapping into socially relevant moments instead of being just another brand showing workout videos, which helps it take a stand on issues like toxic diet trends.

Your mission in this second chapter is to utilise platforms that allow for authentic content, as well as build brand memories that are consistent with brand assets and cues.

To captivate the depths of attention, let TikTok be the launchpad for your products. 

Bundle branding solutions like TopView and In-feed ads for maximum impact.

Meet your campaign goals with branding recipes for occasions such as new launches and seasonal moments.

Click here to learn more about TikTok’s branding recipes.

Mission 3: Explore the full-funnel frontier

Digital platforms are not merely useful for short-term reach. TikTok, for example, can help achieve full funnel impact. Brands should aim to balance between multi-screen solutions, customised content for each screen and ensure that all the different pieces work well together.

Your mission in the third task is to be thoughtful in your screen choice and deliver three key pairings: short- and long-term, upper- and lower-funnel, and adopt a multi-screen strategy. On top of that, brands should optimise multi-screen measurement tools so that they can identify the most effective screen mix for high returns.

Case study: TikTok branding recipes – Nestle

Nestle commemorated 50 years of its flagship chocolate TikTok in Japan with the launch of Yokubari Double Kit-Kat — a twin-layered variant. In addition to a TV campaign, Nestle enlisted popular music celebrity PikoTaro for a social media campaign.

TikTok contributed over 40% to a lift in conversion while securing over 90 million views. Speaking about the approach, Shintaro Muraoka, into home confectionary marketing department manager Nestlé said, “I wanted to take a “user first” approach. TikTok felt like the right platform as it is what users love to watch, and the place where trends happen. It is really raising the brand's standard, including affinity with our target demographic.”

Your mission in the third task is to be thoughtful in your screen choice and deliver three key pairings: short- and long-term, upper- and lower-funnel, and adopt a multi-screen strategy. To boost the efficiency of your full-funnel campaigns, drive upper funnel results with our branding recipes. Pair this with our Smart+ solution that leverages TikTok’s AI to build, manage, and effectively optimise your performance campaigns.

Mission 4: Scaling peaks for a holistic view

Regular TikTok users notice that organic, creator-led content captures attention most effectively. This is a huge advantage for brands, to piggyback onto the power of such content to supplement paid messages. There’s evidence of 27% increase in brand recall when users see organic content before paid. Organic content can thus make its paid counterpart more effective.

“A brand should want to establish a legitimate TikTok presence that appeals to its audience,” says McKinnon. “You can then put media spend behind it. A robust organic strategy is what turns a brand into a legitimate online presence that people eagerly talk about and share.”

In this final chapter, your mission is to embrace holistic measurement, consider both organic and paid, and deploy both these content types as part of a coordinated strategy.

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