Short form content is huge but how do marketers make a big impact in a short time?
TikTok, Reels and other short form content has absolutely exploded in the last few years. How marketers deal with these platforms has been a focus on our media and strategy teams. Here is what we are learning and some of the pitfalls and opportunities they provide.
TikTok was built off trends that content creators made and engaged with, and they are still a core attraction for users. When brands put their own spin on these trends they can find a willing audience but the messages need to be authentic to the trend while putting their own flavour to it.
The #ChipotleLidFlip is a great example of this. Based around #bottleflip challenge is was a simple, fun and very shareable idea. But it was very much focused on the product – the delicious burrito bowls they sell and it was as wholesome as the brand itself, so a great fit. They used influencers to help drive the campaign which came at a time when TikTok itself was seeing dramatic growth and it is still one of the best examples of developing viral content that not just delivered eyeballs but boosted sales. One video resulted in 230 million views and the whole campaign drove a 13.5% increase in sales.
While that example was based on a brand taking a challenge and reinvesting it for yourself, another technique is to be ‘always on’ and engaging with audiences in these platforms – on a minute by minute basis. This one is a lot harder and scares the bejesus out of some marketeers as it requires your agency to be given a long rope in terms of what they say, to whom and when, often without any client approval.
A young copywriter I mentored a few years ago ended up at a top New Zealand agency where she has been working on the Samsung mobile account, with a strong focus on social media. Given a free rein over their TikTok account, last year she jumped onto a post from a young man who posted he wanted to “buy an apple”. Cass and her creative partner messaged back as Samsung NZ “You hungry?” and then after some banter, produced a reply video that generated 5 million views and 700,000 likes and boosted the Samsung NZ Tiktok following by 70,000 followers!
They drive engagement with authentic responses, often videos created and released in a matter of hours, that are witty and on brand, both in terms of Samsung talking to their younger audiences and for Aoterroa/New Zealand which has a self-deprecating sense of humour. They are walking a tightrope but doing it with the type of precision, pace and voice the platforms thrive on while highlighting key product strengths along the way.
One key to the Samsung success is the lack of quality of the videos – they can be quite amateur in appearance and also often feature Cass and her colleagues, but this provides a strong feeling of relatability to the audience – they are not after slick, they want quick, funny and social.
This takes me to the key point – viral and relatable short form content needs to be, like any other tactic, a reflection of the brand and the medium. The Samsung TikTok videos would not work in a cinema where there is no context. There we want to use the medium to its full effect with glorious wide screen shots of the product in action and epic portrayals of their users becoming better people by being owners of said product, or perhaps amusing interactions between known stars while using the product. The message needs to fit the medium and simply taking existing content and repurposing it for a different medium is a fast track to irrelevance.
The underlying need of marketeers is to find their voice in each platform and use that to engage those who may benefit from your opinion of information. Being a person in my 50’s I’m not exactly a TikTok target user but as I have engaged with the platform I have also engaged with many brands. The content that catches my eye, and thus ends up high on my feed, is that relating to home renovations and building techniques. As a ‘weekend warrior’ with a tool belt I have picked up untold tips from content creators and brands around my area of interest. Here I want brands to help me do a better job and if their product is part of that better job, then I’m up for it. This is what works for me and the kind of short-form content that works in general. It is relevant, authentic, helpful, sometimes amusing, often memorable, relatable and distinct.
How marketers find their niche is our job and it’s one that takes more effort that the resulting content might portray. This is the key – doing the work up front and finding the right team, angle, platform and voice to get the great content out there and working for you. TikTok is not for every brand, but it is for brands who understand its nuances and can find their place within them.
Grant Whitehouse
Head of Strategy