How TikTok is using the Super Bowl to sell brands on livestreaming

TikTok is using its tailgate party, produced for the Super Bowl, to promote the app as a live destination for major brands, and to win a greater share of real-time marketing dollars around the game. Last week, TikTok announced the headline acts for its third NFL TikTok Tailgate livestream, which will feature Jason Derulo and The Black Keys. The show is TikTok’s best chance to convince advertisers it is a destination for live programming with the full attention of Gen Z. TikTok has been sending marketing pitches to agencies that rep major brands to advertise around the tailgate show, a live performance preceding the Big Game on Feb. 12. “TikTok has been louder than ever before and they’re making a big to-do about the game,” said one agency exec, who received the proposal. “The package for the tailgate has gotten bigger. It’s more comprehensive, and TikTok also is trying to push sponsors, with media commitments, to do more performance marketing on the app.” The ad deals around TikTok’s tailgate include TikTok takeovers, which give brands maximum exposure for ads that load up when users first open the app. There also are product mentions and placements in the livestream of the festivities. Brands also are working with creators, who can post custom content. And the advertisers get ad campaigns that run in the week ahead of the game, and after, the agency exec said. Some of the ad packages cost between $2 million and $4 million, depending on the length of the commitment from brands, the agency exec said. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs TikTok wants brands to think of the app as more than a place to rack up views with funny videos, and instead to reach sales goals with ads that have calls to action, the exec said. TikTok also wants to become a true “second screen,” where it is replacing the viewership on TV, as younger audiences increasingly scroll through the app instead of watching the game and the commercials. The Super Bowl is an ideal showcase for the message that TikTok has been sending to advertisers—that it’s an entertainment app, not simply social media. “TikTok is telling us to make our advertising dollars go further,” said a second agency executive, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re going after brands who want to reach younger people, because a lot of Gen Z is not watching TV and they may not be actually watching the Super Bowl.” TikTok is using the tailgate party as a demonstration of its livestreaming features, which are popular in Asia and other parts of the world, but less ingrained in the behavior of U.S. social media users. Livestreaming often goes hand in hand with commerce, too, and TikTok has been trying to make social commerce work. In the U.S., live shopping and social commerce have faced resistance among consumers. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese-based ByteDance, has been testing live shopping in the U.S. with major retailers. TikTok vs. Twitter TikTok also is trying to win brands for the Super Bowl while Twitter is having a harder time securing deals. Twitter is typically the place for real-time conversation, especially among Super Bowl advertisers. However, brands have been looking for alternative platforms amid tensions with Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk. Twitter has become less consistent as a marketing channel since Musk took over in October. Ad spend on Twitter dropped 71% year over year in December while TikTok’s ad revenue rose 35%, according to data recently released by Standard Media Index, which tracks spending by major ad agencies. Brands are still very much using Twitter as a place to post organically, but some advertisers have expressed reservations about buying ads there, and that has forced marketers to look for new platforms for Super Bowl. TikTok has surfaced as a popular destination in the weeks leading up to the Big Game. Doritos, for instance, used Twitter to promote its “Triangle Tryout” dance contest, which is part of a Super Bowl campaign that relies heavily on TikTok. The brand, marketed by PepsiCo's Frito-Lay unit, is putting the winning TikTok user into a Doritos Super Bowl commercial starring Jack Harlow and Missy Elliott. @doritos Triangle obsessed? Us too. Share this triangle-inspired dance using #DoritosTriangleTryout and #Entry ♬ original sound - Doritos On TikTok, the hashtag “DoritosTriangleTryout” returned 11.7 billion views to date. “TikTok is appealing to a lot of the brands, especially the CPG [consumer packaged goods] businesses that are in Super Bowl,” said a third agency exec, who has seen TikTok’s brand deals around the game. “Where people are actually buying the products that are in and around Super Bowl parties, they are starting to activate way more on TikTok.” Meanwhile, Doritos rival Pringles produced a Super Bowl commercial starring Meghan Trainor that plays on the popularity of the singer’s viral TikTok dance for her song “Made You Look.” Last week, the Kellogg brand headed to Instagram, not TikTok or Twitter, to unveil its plan to feature Trainor in its latest Super Bowl ad. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pringles (@pringles) The Quaker Oats Company is using TikTok as part of an ad campaign starring New York Giants legend Eli Manning. Quaker wants fans to share their “pregrain” recipes for oatmeal on TikTok, a marketing concept the PepsiCo brand started using last year that is a spin on the term “pregame.” The oatmeal maker is driving consumers to share the hashtag “QuakerPregrain” and “Entry,” and is giving away tickets to next year’s Super Bowl via TikTok. PepsiCo is having some success with these TikTok contests. Since Frito-Lay issued a call for dancers in its Doritos campaign, there have been more than 1 million submissions, Stacy Taffet, senior VP of brand marketing at Frito-Lay, told Ad Age. Super Bowl marketing All the latest Big Game ad news in one spot Click here for updates Some brands with expensive Super Bowl commercials, which cost as much as $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime, might hesitate before driving viewers to TikTok and away from the game, said another ad agency exec, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s a tough conversation to have internally because everyone is saying, ‘people are going to be watching the game, why are we pushing them somewhere else for a live moment,’” the exec said. Late last week, TikTok announced the celebrities and creators involved in the pregame NFL tailgate show including Derulo, who is one of TikTok’s biggest stars with 57 million followers. There are at least a dozen other creators and entertainers associated with the event, including hosts Allison Kuch and her husband, NFL player Isaac Rochell. TikTok is still experimental as a live platform and is not necessarily known as a pure destination for real-time marketing. On Super Bowl Sunday, agencies eager to reach TikTok's audience will want social media specialists to be on their phones, as TikTok's features work best on mobile devices.Contributed: Gillian Follett

How TikTok is using the Super Bowl to sell brands on livestreaming

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