Page 21 - Adnews Magazine Sep-Oct 2020

Meet the Team
INSIDE TIKTOK’S AUSTRALIA LAUNCH
TikTok, which launched its Australian team at the height of a pandemic, has been dealing with increased political scrutiny and competition from the established social media players. AdNews talks to commercial general manager Brett Armstrong about how the app has stayed on its growth path.
Many members of the local TikTok team have yet to meet face-to-face, separated by the pandemic which came just before the business’ official launch earlier this year. However, they’ve still been busy working to build the platform’s local pres- ence as its popularity surged under global lockdowns, throwing it in the spotlight of both governments and competitors.
The video-sharing app opened its Australian office in June, headed by former Google executives Brett Armstrong, as general manager for global business solutions, and Lee Hunter, as general manager.
Speaking to AdNews, Armstrong says the Sydney-based team has been flooded with demand from advertisers as the app blew up globally during the early phases of the pandemic with people using its viral challenges to stay connected and entertained while under strict stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of coronavirus.
TikTok doesn’t release local user numbers but Roy Morgan estimated in February it had more than 1.6 million Australian users, which has mostly likely jumped since.
“We’ve been incredibly fortunate here, in that since we opened our doors the opportunities have been flowing in almost faster than we can keep up with,” Armstrong tells AdNews.
“So we’ve really had to hit the ground running and scale up as fast as possible to meet that demand. Since I joined TikTok, I’ve been able to handpick a strong and extremely talented team of innovators and builders who thrive on that kind of challenge and we are still growing.
WORDS BY
MARIAM CHEIK-HUSSEIN
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