TikTok AI avatar ads—how brands and creators can use the new twinning feature

TikTok is launching AI-generated avatars for brands and creators to ramp up production on the platform, making it possible for an advertiser to create hundreds of pieces of content, in multiple languages, the company announced on Monday. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns As part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, TikTok launched “stock avatars” and “custom avatars,” which promise to unleash a new type of AI-generated ad campaign across the platform. The announcement was a follow-up to an AI announcement that TikTok made in May at TikTok World, when it launched “Symphony,” a tool that writes scripts and helps produce videos for the popular video app. “The challenge that brands have in the TikTok ecosystem, is how can they create the highest volume of content and the widest variety of content,” said Adrienne Lahens, global head of operations of TikTok creator marketing solutions. “Those are two things that are really important in terms of being able to thrive.” Lahens said these new AI avatars are not like animated characters; they’re more human and cinematic. For a creator, that means they can build a custom avatar based on their likeness. For a brand, they can build a custom avatar based on a spokesperson or mascot. Then that marketing doppelganger can be used in hundreds of varieties of creative. A new AI dubbing tool also translates those videos into multiple languages as if the subject of the video were speaking it natively. Brands are testing this feature out, Lahens said. An airline in Vietnam is working with TikTok to build avatars for their brand spokespeople, who only speak in Vietnamese, “they’re trying to cater to a global audience,” Lahens said. The campaign can take “real people, their real brand representatives and make avatars with them,” Lahens said. “That’s a campaign that’s in production right now.” The worlds of AI, creators and content are a top subject at Cannes again this year. YouTube has already opened up AI translation services that turn its mega-creators into multilingual stars, and they’ve been used by YouTubers such as MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson. Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, has also developed generative AI for advertisers and creators, and will likely address the subject more deeply this week. Meanwhile, last week, Pinterest launched an AI ad product that Nike and Wayfair already tested. Generative AI is a touchy subject in social media and advertising, with instances of consumer confusion caused by deepfake ads across various apps. Additionally, startup ad agencies already collaborate with creators to produce brand videos using AI deepfake technology. In recent months, there also have been examples of celebrity deepfakes, including Taylor Swift, circulating on social media hawking major brands they never endorsed. TikTok and other platforms have been trying to bring some transparency to the use of AI on their platforms. Along with the new avatars, TikTok compiled a new advisory board of brands and creators to help set guidelines for how to use the technology responsibly. The marketers on the AI advisory board include Mondelēz, American Eagle, Wendy’s and the NBA; as well as agencies such as OMD, Tinuiti, Day One, Tool, TBWA Chiat; and creators Drea Okeke, David Ma, Michelle Gonzales and O’Neil Thomas. One of the important aspects of AI on TikTok is “making sure people do understand where AI [generated content] is being used, where is that content being generated through AI,” said Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions. “That’s a starting point.” The new avatars are broken up into the two categories of “stock” and “custom.” While the custom avatars are based on a brand or creator’s intellectual property, the stock avatars are similar to stock images and videos, based on paid actors, Lahens said. Before Cannes, some agencies close to TikTok were already aware of plans for AI-generated avatars, according to one agency exec, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The new use of AI showed promise because it would vastly increase the amount of content a brand could try, this exec said, and it would have broad creative implications. When brands “understand the environment and the voice they should have within TikTok they’re really rewarded,” Chandlee said. “So we’re continuing to work with the brands on what does that mean, as the world changes, and AI is going to play a pretty significant role both in the creative process as well as how we optimize for brands.” TikTok’s new AI tools come amidst the app’s legal battle with the U.S. government, which passed a law in April forcing the company’s Chinese-based owner ByteDance to divest the U.S. portion of its business or face a ban. Chandlee would only say, “We’re vehemently opposed to the legal process on that one, and we’ll fight back.” The new AI does have a global component to it with the translation services. It wasn’t built with the idea in mind that brands could use AI to expand their reach outside the U.S., Lahens said. “We feel really confident in our position in the U.S.,” Lahens said, “but it does certainly help for creators and marketers to scale their campaigns globally.”

TikTok AI avatar ads—how brands and creators can use the new twinning feature

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