PODCAST | Tiktok — the new frontier for business marketing

Change in online advertising driven by the rapid growth of TikTok is the focus in this edition of the Business Day Spotlight. 

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Scott Thwaites, head of Africa and Turkey at TikTok for Business. 

Chinese founded TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media and video entertainment platforms in the world, with more than 1-billion active users. TikTok for Business is the group’s unit focused on bringing advertisers onto the platform. 

This discussion focuses on some of the insights that TikTok for Business has found around changes in advertising brought on by the platform.

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Thwaites says one of the biggest trends in the space is the current generation of young people — referred to as Gen Z — tend to dislike and avoid advertising online. In addition, research has found that about half of this particular cohort tends to have software on computers and smart devices that blocks ads. 

Despite this reality, advertising and brand communication is growing on TikTok. Before the Covid-19 pandemic came into effect in 2020, TikTok had been slated as the fastest-growing advertising site for businesses in SA. 

Thwaites says part of the reason for the success of advertising on TikTok is the entertaining nature of content that includes promotional material. In other words, young people find promotional content on the app to be enjoyable. 

Companies and brands are also working with content creators to have their products and services mentioned or incorporated in videos that would otherwise be considered as general entertainment. This means advertisements that are not explicitly formatted as such. 

Topics of discussion include: the function of TikTok for Business; trends in advertising on TikTok; shifts in how companies are using online advertising; and, ways in which brands can better position themselves on the internet. 

Perhaps the most important shift of all, Thwaites says, is “brands are shifting from simply witnessing culture and attempting to keep up — to actually being a part of the conversation and even sparking cultural movements.”