Dive Brief:
- TikTok is attempting to make itself more friendly to advertisers within the larger entertainment ecosystem with two new ad products directed at helping streaming platforms and entertainment studios promote their content, according to a press release.
- The new products, which are being announced at Sundance Film Festival this week, are TikTok Streaming Ads, powered by Smart+, and New Title Launch. The former is designed to help streamers showcase personalized content to TikTok users, while the latter is meant to drive subscriptions and ticket sales.
- The solutions come as TikTok's parent, ByteDance, is set to turn over control of its U.S. operations to a group of investors primarily based in the U.S. The deal, announced in December, will secure the popular app’s future operation in the U.S. market.
Dive Insight:
For all of the concerns about how TikTok is hurting the entertainment industry with its snackable content that shortens attention spans, it is still an effective channel for entertainment advertising.
Four in five TikTok users say the channel inspires their broader streaming choices and inspires them to seek out new content, per the platform. TikTok users are also significantly more likely to maintain a streaming service subscription so that they can knowledgeably participate in online discourse. TikTok also claims that nearly half of its users have discovered a new theatrical release through its platform, with almost a third of them being inspired to take action to see the film.
The new ad products are meant to help entertainment advertisers reach this engaged audience. The Streaming Ads product is designed to deliver ads to users who have shown an interest in entertainment-specific content, tailored to the user’s demonstrated interests. Streaming Ads will showcase multiple titles through two formats: a video carousel that displays four video titles from one service’s catalog, and a Media Card interactive add-on that highlights multiple titles.
The second product, New Title Launch, is designed to capitalize on an entertainment advertiser’s biggest moments, like season premieres, new releases and sporting events. The format uses specific signals, such as favorite movie genre or pricing sensitivity, to reach high-intent users and boost subscriptions and ticket sales.
“Entertainment advertisers are increasingly turning to TikTok as a powerful audience-building engine,” said Tao Baecklund, global head of content and services ads at TikTok, in release details.
That sentiment has been borne out through a number of partnerships and programs with entertainment companies. Last September, TikTok and Fandango teamed up to enable movie ticket purchases directly through the TikTok app. The platform followed that up in December with a tie-in with Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” release, featuring an immersive content hub of quizzes and creator videos with exclusive pre-release movie clips. Perhaps not coincidentally, Disney recently announced it would begin promoting its content through TikTok-like vertical videos.
