TikTok also recently hired global chief strategy officer Roland Cloutier (April 2020), ad platform product marketing head Chris Vennard (April 2020) and brand strategy head Meg Siegel (March 2020).
TikTok pledged $250 million to support front line medical workers, educators and local communities affected by the global crisis; further commitments included $25 million in ads to help organizations deliver important public health information and $100 million in ad credits to help businesses rebuild. On a lighter note, the company also streamed events such as the "Music Lives" music festival, which encouraged social distancing and raised funds for MusiCares's coronavirus relief fund.
Adbeat estimates the company spent around $1m on digital display ads over the last 365 days, a 25% increase from $800k spent during the 365 days prior. It placed 72% of these as video ads through YouTube onto youtube.com and sbnation.com. It placed 19% site direct onto sites such as nbcsports.com, addictinggames.com, foxnews.com, imgrum.org and epicurious.com. Finally, it placed 9% programmatically though Google Display & Video 360 onto sites such as bleacherreport.com, nbcsports.com, espn.com and yahoo.com.
According to iSpot, Tik Tok spent around $52.8k on national TV ads YTD, all during the "2020 NBA Rising Stars Challenge." It did not air an ad in this channel during the same time period of 2019; full-year spend equaled $46.2k in 2019.
It primarily targets Gen-Z and millennials with a male, sports-oriented skew. TikTok is also a widely-used ad platform for companies trying to get in front of younger generations, especially Gen-Z. You may also want to offer paid social, podcast and/or OTT ad space.
Agency & martech readers - TikTok hired four AORs in August 2019 to fuel growth, so we'd encourage you to read elsewhere for now. RPA split creative.