TikTok ads portray app as force for good as US ban looms
In an emotional advertisement that has been running on Facebook and Instagram for the past month, Katie talks about being diagnosed at age 19 with a kidney disease. But she was able to find a transplant match “because a stranger was scrolling on TikTok.”
Thanks to that stranger’s kidney, she continued, she was here today. The company said in a caption that included a smiling tearful emoji, “For some people, TikTok literally saved their lives.” The campaign portrays TikTok in a positive light as a champion for small businesses and as a savior to Americans as it races towards an April 5 deadline. If the app fails to meet this deadline, the app will be banned from the United States. The company is not taking any risks. TikTok ads also feature a creator selling a product to help administer CPR. AdImpact, a media tracking firm, estimates that TikTok spent more than $7 million in the same months this year on advertising time for commercials. Lindsay Gorman, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s technology program and a tech advisor under the Biden Administration, said that TikTok was “trying” to raise public opinion in favor of the firm. She added, “This movement to ‘save TikTok’ has not gone away in the 11th hour of these negotiations.”
TikTok declined to comment.
Outside the ads, the company is largely acting as if it is business as usual. TikTok has been telling creators since February that it is confident in its future in the United States. This is largely due to the Trump administration. “In January, if anyone was on the app at the time, they would hear about the ban almost every day. It’s not on my For You Page anymore — no one is talking about it.”
Ms. Justine was among creators who joined a briefing call in February with TikTok executives, including Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, the tone of which buoyed her spirits.
“They were really, really hopeful,” Ms. Justine said. Ad spending on the platform seems to have recovered in this month. MikMak, an analytics company that tracks retail sales of more than 2,000 brands, says that many major brands paused their advertising on the platform in January before the ban and didn’t fully return to it in February. MikMak has seen advertising traffic from TikTok return to the same level as in the fourth quarter. So far in March, MikMak has seen advertising traffic from TikTok return to the same level as in the fourth quarter.
“There’s really no channel out there that does everything that TikTok does, and until brands are told otherwise that they can no longer spend dollars there, they will,” said Rachel Tipograph, chief executive of MikMak.
The company is also planning to appear at industry events, including a prominent gathering for advertisers in New York, in the coming months and planning projects with American creators that extend beyond April 5.
TikTok is listed as a partner for the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the south of France in June. Last year, the company flew Shou Chew (its chief executive) and U.S. TikTok stars such as Alix Earle, to the confab. It’s business as usual for TikTok, said Daniel Daks of Palette Media. The agency represents more than 230 stars on social media. “They continue to plan projects that extend well beyond the theoretical banning date.”
TikTok, ByteDance and others have said for years that the sale of the app was impossible due to the Chinese government blocking it. TikTok, despite the looming deadline and the chatter about potential suitors from Mr. Trump, has not stated whether this position has changed. “TikTok has essentially been trying to re-litigate this law and encourage Congress to backtrack on its calls to enforce it.”
Desiree, a 39 year-old Georgia mechanic who appears in TikTok ads, believes that the highlighting small-business owners is meant to reach policymakers. “It’s a huge economy booster — you take that away and businesses suffer,” she added.
But she’s also more concerned about TikTok’s future than she was at the beginning of January.
“They showed us they can cut access, so I feel like it’s more of a threat right now,” she said.
