5 new TikTok trends that brands can follow

The threat of a potential U.S. ban may still be looming over TikTok, but the platform seems to have been largely unaffected by the surrounding political turmoil. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, meanwhile, was featured in a slew of fancams on the app in the week following his appearance in front of Congress. TikTok’s endless trend cycle, too, has continued unabated in the wake of Chew’s grilling from Congress. Here are five of the biggest trends that have swept across the platform over the last few weeks, from users trying to find their soulmates to others jokingly presenting alternatives to bandages. If you missed our most recent round of trends, you can catch up here. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Moon phase test The moon has always held a deep significance for astrology enthusiasts—a category that many members of Gen Z proudly fall into. These avid astrologists hold that the moon’s different phases can influence everything from a person’s character traits to their compatibility with friends or romantic partners. Also read: 6 creator marketing trends to watch So, it was somewhat inevitable that a CapCut template that determines whether two people are soulmates based on which phase of the moon they were born under, would go viral. The video template, aptly named “Moon Phase Test,” prompts a user to enter the two participants’ dates of birth, which then leads to an animation of the moon phases on those dates sliding onto the screen. If these phases complete each other and create a whole moon (for example, if both people were born during a half moon), then the two parties are considered “soulmates,” in either a platonic or romantic sense. Over 9.5 million TikTok users thus far have tried the CapCut template for themselves, plugging in the birthdays of everyone from family members and close friends to their pets—and even their celebrity crushes. And a few brands, including the mobile game Subway Surfers, have also played with the trend, all helping to propel the hashtag #MoonPhaseTest to nearly 60 million views over the past three weeks. @brendale45 boutta make so many of these with every single person i know. stay tuned ♬ cupid twin version - ⟡ TRACYTRACKS ⟡ Because participating in this trend simply involves inputting two dates into a premade template, brands can easily capitalize on the moon phase phenomenon with videos comparing the birthdays of various elements of the brand—such as a specific product, a mascot or the brand itself—with members of the social media team or other people relevant to the brand. 'You sure about that?' This next trend parallels a similar video format that circulated on the now-shuttered social platform Vine back in 2016, which featured professional wrestler and actor John Cena putting his face through a green screen and asking, “Are you sure about that?” The new TikTok iteration of the video format swaps Cena for comedian Tim Robinson, who sarcastically asked the same question during an episode of the Netflix sketch comedy series “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.” Related: How a possible TikTok ban could impact NIL deals In the three weeks since the release of a CapCut template that allows TikTok users to overlay Robinson’s skeptical questioning onto their own videos, more than 220,000 videos have been made using it. The majority of TikTokers have taken the template to convey one party’s disbelief in response to another’s statement: for example, a car doubting their owner’s claim that they’ll get gas on the way to work, or a person’s bed reacting skeptically to their promise that they’ll wake up at 5:30 in the morning to exercise. The hashtag included on many of these videos, #YouSureAboutThat, has amassed 4 million views over the past week and 38 million total views in roughly the past month. Several brands have leveraged the trend for their own videos, including Heelys, 4Ocean and The Laughing Cow, as well as a number of sports teams. @thelaughingcowus This picture is edited. No one lose their mind pls. #thelaughingcow #mandelaeffect #mandellaeffects #capcut #trending #fyp #cheese ♬ You Sure About That _ ITYSL - Scott Holford External vs. internal wounds The format of this trend is in the name: a user posts a photo of bandages, with overlaid text reading “for external wounds,” followed by a photo of something that heals their inner, emotional traumas, labeled with the text “for internal wounds.” Though this concept sounds somber, the majority of the 60,000-plus users who have participated in the trending format thus far have approached it with humor and playfulness. These videos typically include “cures” for internal wounds ranging from specific foods, such as pasta or chips and salsa, to the user’s pets, to very niche pieces of media such as the “Glee” cover of the song “Somewhere Only We Know.” As the ominous-sounding hashtag #ExternalWounds has swelled to more than 25 million views over the past month, many brands have created their own takes on the trend, including Crumbl Cookies and Axe—which presented their products as the treatment for internal wounds—and Toys “R” Us, which instead put forth the company’s mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. 'I woke up in a new Bugatti' TikTok has a history of catapulting songs that are several years old back into the spotlight—remember the revival of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” back in 2020 after a user posted a video of himself skateboarding to it? The latest song to receive this TikTok resurgence is the 2013 song “Bugatti” by rapper Ace Hood, which has been used in over 350,000 videos since the last week of February. The song’s chorus, specifically, in which the rapper sings, “I woke up in a new Bugatti,” has been the focus of this trend. TikTok users have set this lyric against visuals of themselves or others riding in various vehicles that are decidedly not new Bugattis. User @mr_hobnob, for example, used the song in a video of their guinea pig sitting in a toy monster truck, while @dutchbrosluver set a video of their dad riding on a shopping cart to the song. This is easily accessible for nearly any brand, as long as they have access to some type of wheeled vehicle—the further from a luxury car like a Bugatti, the better. The TikTok account for the children’s TV series “Teletubbies,” for example, tapped into the trend by having the Ace Hood song accompany a clip of the series’ titular characters driving their “Tubby Car.” @teletubbies I woke up in Teletubbyland ❓⁉️ #teletubbies ♬ original sound - Teletubbies HQ Interestingly, Bugatti Rimac, the auto maker at the center of the trend, has yet to engage with it. In fact, the Bugatti TikTok account itself has no videos at all despite having over 440,000 followers. 'If I had to speak about love, I’d tell them about us' Many TikTok users have assumed the audio at the heart of the next trend originated from romantic dialogue in a movie or TV show—but, in reality, the trending sound stems from user @_isaiahquinn reciting a poem that he wrote. The user’s gravelly reading of the poem, which begins with the line, “If I had to speak about love, I’d tell them about us,” has been used in nearly 400,000 videos thus far, most of which were created in the past month. These videos typically follow a similar format to the “external vs. internal wounds” trend, with users posting a photo of themselves followed by one of the object of their affection—whether that be another person or, more frequently, a literal object. And hundreds of users have already begun incorporating brands and products into the trend, including Trader Joe’s and Pizza Hut. Though TikTokers have been using the romantic audio clip for roughly a month, the trend doesn’t seem to be fizzling out, with the hashtag #IfIHadToSpeakAboutLove amassing more than 10 million views and 2,500 new videos in the past two weeks alone. And several brands have recently jumped on the trending video format, too, with Rare Beauty using it to communicate its love for the brand’s founder, Selena Gomez; the Duolingo owl continuing its romantic pursuit of Dua Lipa; and Delta Air Lines highlighting its in-flight Biscoff cookies.

5 new TikTok trends that brands can follow

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