The top 5 brand TikToks you need to know about right now

This installment of Ad Age’s expanded “Creativity Top 5” series looks at the best TikTok videos posted by brands over the past few weeks. In this month’s lineup: Selena Gomez generates buzz for her brand’s new blush, Duolingo’s April Fools’ Day prank titillates TikTok, and a blooper wins Google Pixel millions of views. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Award winners here No. 5: Rare Beauty Founder Selena Gomez teases new product On TikTok, it’s often the simplest videos that garner the most attention—but, of course, a celebrity influencer being the star of one of those videos doesn’t hurt its chances of going viral. Selena Gomez’s cosmetics brand Rare Beauty embraced that philosophy for a video teasing the brand’s latest product launch, with Gomez acting out a brief skit where she pretends to pitch a new product: “What if we combined liquid blush and our powder highlighter?” The video is eight seconds long, but it garnered over 12.7 million views and over one million likes. It was also shared over 13,000 times, likely by members of Rare Beauty’s loyal Gen Z customer base circulating the announcement around their group chats. And a series of subsequent TikTok videos from the brand revealing the new blush collectively amassed over 16 million additional views. @rarebeauty HYPOTHETICALLY…what would happen? @Selena Gomez #rarebeauty #selenagomez #newrarebeauty #newproductalert ♬ original sound - Rare Beauty See also: How Rare Beauty could adjust its marketing strategy if acquired No. 4: Duolingo’s April Fools’ Day prank goes viral Duolingo’s promotional video for a fake ice skating show, “Duolingo on Ice,” was clearly produced with its TikTok audience in mind, featuring the dark humor (such as an implied off-screen child sacrifice) and shenanigans of the brand’s owl mascot, Duo, that its nearly 12 million TikTok followers adore. The language learning app even partnered with The Gregory Brothers, the creators of the TikTok-viral “It’s Corn!” song, to produce a soundtrack for the make-believe ice show, featuring mildly-threatening song titles such as “Spanish or Vanish” and “French or the Trench.” The April Fools’ Day stunt sent TikTokers into a flurry of excitement, racking up more than 56,000 comments such as “I love gen z being in charge of marketing” and “IM DEFINITELY BUYING TICKETS.” It also amassed more than 14 million views and over two million likes. And a follow-up TikTok video that set clips from Duolingo’s fake ad to the theme song of the anime “Yuri on Ice” netted the brand another 10 million views and 1.8 million likes. @duolingo Introducing DUOLINGO ON ICE⛸️, the new multilingual musical! Learning a language has never been this cool🥶. Follow Duo the Owl and friends on a ✨magical adventure around the world✨ as they teach a series of fun lessons, by any means necessary👀. Buy tickets at link in bio🎟️ #fyp #duolingo #DuolingoOnIce ♬ original sound - Duolingo See also: How Duolingo is using anime to reach younger consumers No. 3: The Masters Tournament wins over Gen Z fans Professional golf isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Gen Z, but TikTok users widely praised the Masters for its humorous and engaging content throughout this year’s event. Several of the videos the account uploaded during the tournament garnered view counts in the millions, such as a “POV” of groundskeepers filling divots in the golf course turf and a video of people speed-walking at the tournament set to the trending “more passion, more energy” audio clip. But the video that generated the most buzz for the Masters was a short clip of pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau emulating a signature catchphrase of Twitch streamer @thesketchreal, or simply Sketch, saying, “Thank you, brother” while holding up his pointer finger. It then cuts to an impressive shot from DeChambeau, but the virality of Sketch and his mannerisms is what was truly behind the nearly 17 million views and 1.6 million likes the TikTok video received. (The NFL, too, amassed millions of views on a TikTok featuring Sketch and his, “Special teams, special plays, special players” slogan.) Sketch responded to the Masters’ video, garnering 76,000 likes on his comment “LETS GO BROTHER ☝️.” @themasters Thank you brother. ☝️ #sketch #themasters @Bryson DeChambeau ♬ original sound - The Masters No. 2: Google Pixel's camera demonstration goes wrong Dog videos are always a hit on TikTok—and in advertising more broadly. Google Pixel teamed up with actor and creator Atif Hashwi to capitalize on that universal truth in a TikTok ad for the “active stabilization” feature on Google Pixel. Hashwi asks a person walking their dog if he can film the dog running to demonstrate the phone’s active stabilization camera feature, which works to reduce shakiness in video footage. The resulting footage Hashwi shows at the end of the video is impressive—but viewers ended up being more entertained by Hashwi accidentally tripping and tumbling head over heels while filming. Hundreds of TikTok users flocked to the comments to call Google Pixel’s video the “funniest ad I’ve ever seen😭🙏🙏” or joke “bro tested the stabilization and durability at the same time.” On top of that slew of comments, many of which racked up thousands of likes on their own, the video attracted over 45 million views and more than a million likes. @googlepixel ...Will be spending the rest of life filming dogs running with Active Stabilization #Google #GooglePixel #Pixel8 Pro #Tech @atif.tv ♬ original sound - Google Pixel No. 1: Walmart celebrates Mother’s Day early As we already know, TikTok users go crazy for a compelling celebrity or influencer cameo in a brand’s videos on the platform. So, naturally, a video from Walmart+ (the retailer’s membership program) starring a lineup of six celebrity and influencer moms would draw TikTok’s attention. But the video also offered TikTok users the opportunity to get one step closer to those famous moms, who include Paris Hilton, actress Tia Mowry and “granfluencer” Barbara “Babs” Costello, inviting viewers to submit questions about the challenges of motherhood for a chance to receive advice directly from the group of celebrities. Walmart’s video, part of a campaign from Deutsch LA, has drawn in more than 124 million views in just three days—albeit with the help of paid support. But that isn’t an entirely empty number, as more than 4,700 people have commented on the TikTok video, many of whom are moms genuinely seeking advice from Walmart’s celebrity lineup. @walmart drop your q’s in the comments 4/23-4/24 ♬ original sound - Walmart See also: Creator and influencer trends for brand marketers

The top 5 brand TikToks you need to know about right now

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