With $20 billion in ad spend up for grabs during the TV upfronts ad haggle, social media giant TikTok is looking to position itself as a complement to those ad buys.
TikTok commissioned a study to see how linear TV, streaming services, and TikTok impacted brand recall. It found that when participants saw a brand on TikTok, and then saw it on TV, they had a 4% lift in visual attention to brand cues, and a 6% lift in aided brand recall, meaning they correctly chose the brands they saw from a multiple-choice list in a post-ad exposure questionnaire. If participants saw a brand on a streaming service, they had a 7% lift in visual attention and an 8% lift in aided brand recall.
Viewers paid even more attention if they saw a brand on TV or a streaming service, and then saw the brand on TikTok—with a 16% lift in visual attention to branding and a 13% lift in product placements. They also had a more positive association with a brand after seeing it on streaming and on TikTok, with 11% of viewers feeling “this brand’s ads are likable.”
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With TikTok garnering more of brands' ad budgets, it remains to be seen how this will impact TV ad negotiations, when media networks look to secure a bulk of their ad commitments for the next season.
Brands have been looking to find ways to incorporate TikTok marketing into other screens and platforms. Applebee’s did this in August with a TV commercial that compiled TikTok dances to Walker Hayes’ song “Fancy Like.” McDonald’s took its revamped logo by Emily Zugay and applied it to its Twitter page. And with consumers often multitasking while watching TV, it makes sense for brands to be present on nearby screens.