Young Creatives contest winners: How TikTok communities inspire creativity

The future of creativity lies in the hands of—who else?—creatives, whose inspiration often is rooted in the power and impact of communities. But it’s the right kind of creativity that’s essential for advertisers seeking effective connections with these diverse and wide-ranging groups. Joining Ad Age President Dan Peres at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to discuss making those connections were Kinney Edwards, global head of creative lab at TikTok, and Marco García and Patricio Gabarró, both associate creative directors at FCBNewlink Mexico and winners of Ad Age’s Young Creatives contest sponsored by TikTok. The challenge for brands is that online communities are wildly varied in scope and interests. The old notion of shooting an ad and slicing it into smaller bits for different audiences is long gone, the panelists agreed. “We’re fighting for the attention of people who have different windows on the world, and are looking for brand content that reflects them as such,” Edwards said. “We’re talking about people’s interests, their curiosity and that sense of discovery. So, your messaging has to be super-diverse.” Knowing your own head García and Gabarró could be considered experts on the diversity of communities since their Young Creatives winning video celebrated a laundry list of them. Asked to choose just one TikTok community that inspires their creativity, the duo concocted an energetic, rap-infused mashup of a bunch, from MusicTok and ComedyTok to BreadTok and GymTok. The idea: All communities inspire and are inspired by others. García and Gabarró’s entry won the duo a trip to Cannes Lions, where they were guests of honor at the Ad Age Cannes Lawn Party. “Part of the process is just knowing your own head and your partner’s head,” said Gabarró, who wrote the script, while García composed the music. “We read the brief together, then split for half an hour to think within our own heads what we want to do, then got together and just mixed it up. We each bring to the table things that maybe the other guy wouldn’t think about.” It’s a creative process that may not be typical, but is made easier since the pair are cousins and roommates. Speaking the natural language Edwards and his team work with brands to help them create better experiences and engagement on the platform. He said that making strong connections with communities is critical for success. “The No. 1 thing we always say to brands is to understand how to partner with a creator,” he said. “When you allow them to speak the natural language and interests of the group, it draws you closer to their community and therefore your audience. That creates a sense of authenticity, which we are all looking for in our advertising.” To aid the process, TikTok is boosting its investment in artificial intelligence, announcing at Cannes Lions the launch of AI-generated avatars for brands and creators to create hundreds of pieces of content in multiple languages. That followed the earlier launch of Symphony, an AI tool that can write scripts and help produce videos for the platform. The panel agreed that “speaking the natural language” of a TikTok community, especially striving for authenticity with Gen Z or Alpha, may require a leap of faith in the creative process. It may even require a brand ceding some control to their agency partner or creators and trusting their instincts and experience with the platform. “I think that the [heads of brands] that want results on TikTok don’t have any direct contact with the generation that’s consuming its content,” Gabarró said. “So I think that’s helping young creatives like Marco and me to gain ground and earn trust.” Learning how to connect with the uniqueness of TikTok audiences takes a bit of work, but it’s essential, Edwards said. “It’s great that brands are really leaning in to TikTok and want to make an impact, but it’s for us to translate what they’re trying to say at a marketing level, and how it’s going to be additive to the TikTok experience,” he said. “I think we can all agree that when someone shows us they’re actually interested in us, we become interested in them. That’s the bond that a brand is trying to build.” About TikTok TikTok for Business is a global platform designed to give brands and marketers the solutions to be creative storytellers and meaningfully engage with the TikTok community. With solutions that can deliver seamlessly across every marketing touchpoint, TikTok for Business offers brands an opportunity for rich storytelling through a portfolio of full-screen video formats that appear natively within the user experience.

Young Creatives contest winners: How TikTok communities inspire creativity

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