In September 2018, GUESS (Jeans) cooperated with TikTok in the US on a campaign aimed at Millennials and Gen Z audiences. The UGC campaign, titled #InMyDenim challenge, featured popular content creators:
@ourfire (2.3M fans),
@madison_willow (+983K fans),
@jammincammy (+184k fans),
@operamericano (+380k fans)
They asked fans to both view and create short-form videos.
While this campaign is focused on the US market, it will be interesting to see what impact the campaign has on GUESS in China. Looking at the response on Chinese social channels (Weibo, WeChat and Douyin), there was a strong, positive response.
Further evidence of ByteDance’s converging Chinese x Global opportunities can be found in the newly struck partnership with the NBA. The Global x China deal will allow ByteDance to feature short-video highlights in China via Douyin (and thru Toutiao & Xigua), and Globally through TikTok.
The NBA content available in China will include daily NBA game highlights, behind-the-scenes videos, photos and news. TikTok users in the U.S., as well as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, will have access to select NBA content, including unique highlights.
The popularity of TikTok is growing but still does not guarantee that it will ever reach the levels achieved by other social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. There were many other apps that quickly rose to fame like Vine, Google + and MySpace and then disappeared
To maintain its current popularity, TikTok will have to keep innovating and finding new ways to engage their user base.
With more brands looking to TikTok to further expand their social media marketing reach, TikTok is on the right track. If it is able to capitalise on brand engagements, it is sure to grow further and may even be able to compete with other social media platforms.