TikTok ‘not interested’ in taking clients from agencies

TikTok is "not interested" in taking clients from agencies, according to its global head of brand marketing Sofia Hernandez.

Though many brands currently work with TikTok directly, she said it’s not part of future plans.

Campaign asked Hernandez about relationships between agencies and clients in light of comments by Martin Sorrell, founder of S4 Capital, who said tech platforms were encroaching on larger agencies.

“That’s not my business model,” she said. “I’m interested in getting as many brands to lean into the platform [as possible] and, in order for them to do that, we need to enable the ecosystem of partners that they partner with.”

Hernandez added: “Because it’s so new to everyone, agencies haven’t caught up fast enough to be able to support brands, so it’s set this precedent for brands to come directly to the platform, but that’s not the business I’m in.

“I’m not trying to take jobs away from agencies.” 

TikTok exhibited at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and Hernandez explained the ways she and her team are aiming to demystify the platform to better support brands.

One of the challenges, she said, is that TikTok is still so new to advertisers, media agencies and creatives.

To make the most of TikTok, Hernandez said agencies have to stop thinking about it as "social media".

“In general, agencies and others feel like TikTok is social media, when really it's entertainment,” she said.

“There's still this old-school concept of virality and that's not really what this is about. It's about, 'How do we really make something that we think people are going to enjoy and connect with?' And that, in turn, makes it.”

As well as educating media and creative agencies about the platform, TikTok is encouraging advertisers to "lean in" to it by giving them the tools to create their own content at scale.

The platform recently launched three generative features for advertisers under the TikTok Symphony suite.

The first was digital avatars, which essentially give brands and creators the ability to make their own "deepfakes", or use stock avatars made by actors, and use AI to generate multiple messages for a campaign or promotion without having to record each one separately. 

The second release was AI dubbing, which uses generative AI tech to translate brand ambassador or creator messages into more than 10 different languages and accents. 

The platform also launched the Symphony Collective, bringing together industry representatives to give feedback on TikTok’s AI marketing tools.

Seeing how these tools land, Hernandez added, is going to be the main focus for the rest of the year.

“We put the products out; we want to do it right and we want to see how it's resonating,” she said. 

“And then it will be continuing to educate the industry on how they can step out of their very safe space, and continue to lean in to the platform. So how we can connect brands with creators and how we can keep building tools to enable them, because marketing is forever changed.”

The releases come at a time when the TikTok is under scrutiny due to misleading election news being shared on the platform. 

In the UK, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats launched profiles on TikTok for the first time after the snap election was announced.