TikTok’s potential U.S. ban is already affecting how brands plan media buys and their social commerce spending with some advertisers having preemptively shifted ad dollars to other platforms, according to new data from e-commerce platform MikMak. Meanwhile, some brands, including Cetaphil, recalibrated their social media operations ahead of any possible changes to the app ecosystem.
“Over the past six months, we’ve been preparing for shifts in the platform landscape, leaning further into Meta and YouTube,” Tara Loftis, global president of skincare at Galderma and global head of Cetaphil, told Ad Age this week.
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Cetaphil underwent a rebrand last year and has had a robust social media and e-commerce strategy, including on TikTok, where it has experimented with TikTok Shop, among other activities. The brand is just one of many considering what a TikTok ban would do to its media plan—while it would mean a break from the app in the U.S., Cetaphil would still use TikTok to reach its global audience, Loftis said.
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The TikTok issue has become more pressing as the countdown to possible closure ticks. This week, marketers at major ad agencies braced for the potential that they would have to pause advertising on TikTok, with Sunday marked as the day it could “go dark.”
Creators have been rushing to other apps including another China-based one, Xiaohongshu, which translates to “Little Red Book” and is known as RedNote in the U.S. RedNote has been a popular app among Chinese users since 2013, and brands with a global presence, including Cetaphil and Duolingo, were already there as part of their normal course of marketing to China.
This week, Cetaphil posted to RedNote in English to welcome all the new users coming from the U.S. (Cetaphil’s parent company, Galderma, is based in Zug, Switzerland.)