Ad Age expanded its "Creativity Top 5" series to include roundups of our favorite special-interest campaigns and ideas from brands. This week, we're looking at the latest installment looks at the best TikTok videos posted by brands over the past month.
This month: Some NSFW racoons, Wimbledon, and cheese balls.
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We love to see a brand get out of its comfort zone on TikTok, and Discovery went all in. The nature channel posted a video of two raccoons, um, getting cozy on a fire escape. The video is set to a viral audio snippet from Taylor Swift’s song “Safe and Sound” that goes, “Just close your eyes, the sun is going down, you’ll be alright.” The raccoons have reached 1.6 million views.
The video is on trend for the audio, where users often post about just ignoring something alarming or cringy, such as finding a strand of someone else’s hair on a pillowcase, or less-than-affirming texts.
More and more sports leagues have been open to showing the more painful side of being an athlete, as was the case with the Wimbledon TikTok account. During the Wimbledon boys' doubles final, French duo Paul Inchauspe and Gabriel Debru were playing Americans Sebastian Gorzny and Alex Michelsen. At a close rally, Gorzny replied with a heck of a forehand shot that landed right in Inchauspe’s, uhh, tennis balls. “Ow ... ow, ow,” said the BBC commentator. The TikTok labeled the moment the most painful play in the tournament so far, along with the caption, “Yikes.” Kudos to Inchauspe, who walked off the pain and resumed play. The video has reached 1.7 million views.
Speaking of sports fails, the Seattle Mariners recently had their own fun at the expense of outfielder Julio Rodriguez. During a game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Rodriguez was headed to third base when he lost his footing, went down and had to scramble to get to the base, but was tagged out before he could get there. Commentators said it looked like he was trying to swim to get there. The MLB TikTok account posted the out to a parody sound of Kate Bush’s “Running up that Hill”: “I was running up a hill, and then I ran out of breath, and now I’m regretting all of my life choices.” The TikTok has 1.2 million views.
The Mariners leaned into the joke. The next day their grounds crew had a fake crime scene roped off with an outline of a body with Rodriguez’s number, 44. Don’t worry, Rodriguez took it in stride, posting a laughing emoji and a swimmer emoji on Twitter.
There is a current trend on TikTok called, “He’s a ten, but ...” that refers to a guy being worthy of a 10 out of 10 but there’s something subpar about him, thus lowering his score. Snack maker Utz made its own version that has over 900,000 views. “He’s a 10, but he doesn’t like cheese balls,” says one girl. “Then he's a one,” another replies. (Sorry, guys).
Groups of teenagers dressed in formalwear, aka Gentleminions, are going to see the movie “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” often filming the experience and posting it on TikTok to the song “Rich Minion” by the rapper Yeat.
The trend started when a fan named Bill Hirst filmed himself with a group of friends in suits and ties, enthusiastically watching The Rise of Gru. His TikTok racked up over 30 million views in just a few days, and thousands of people joined in on the joke. (Movie theaters even started banning formalwear because of rowdy movie-goers.)
But the Minions TikTok team has been hard at work, commenting on videos of all kinds, and even posting a nod to the Gentleminions on the brand's official TikTok.
The trend has helped skyrocket the movie to $200 million at the box office. The hashtag #gentleminions has over 123 million views on TikTok.
