Page 22 - Adnews Magazine Sep-Oct 2020

Meet the Team
“We’re currently hiring for more key roles in brand partnerships, customer solutions, brand strategy, business marketing and sales operation. Remotely on-boarding so many new starters during COVID and with everyone working from home is definitely not how we’d like to have done it, but I’ve been so proud of how everyone has risen to the challenge.”
Other executive members of its core launch team include Brent Thomas as director of public policy and Arjun Narayan Bettadapur Manjunath as head of trust and safety, leading TikTok’s dedicated APAC team based in Singapore.
Already the team has worked with brands from small businesses to big names such as Nivea, Gucci Fragrance and Apple. It has dedi- cated teams for clients across FMCG, automotive, tech, retail, govern- ment and more. As we head into the holiday period, Armstrong expects demand from retail and ecommerce to strengthen, and, slowly, the return of travel and tourism brands.
“The response from advertisers so far has been amazing,” he says.
“We’ve had the chance to work with some renowned global and Australian brands, from Optus to Milo to Suncorp, as well as run local campaigns for a huge roster of global brands like MINI, Hyundai and Pepsi, and for those taking the early mover advantage, there are huge market opportunities to capture as well.
“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.”
general manager, Brett Armstrong
“One recent Aussie campaign that we loved was with Menulog, which really aligned with what TikTok is all about. They took the hashtag challenge format to new levels with a Snoop Dogg jingle and an all-star line-up of TikTok creators, encouraging Aussie users to get involved and do their best #DeliveryDance. The cam- paign was a huge success, rein- forcing the value for advertisers in understanding the TikTok community and building that into their strategy.”
TikTok has been expanding across the globe over the past 18 months with key hires in the US, UK, Canada and Japan.
The app’s success has attracted the attention of big players which have tried to cap- ture the popularity of TikTok videos on their own platforms.
Snapchat has incorporated features, such as testing ways to bring music to its creative tools, that mimic the style of Tiktok vid- eos. But a more direct challenge to TikTok is Instagram’s launch of Reels in early August, a tool that allows users to make short- form, TikTok style videos on the platform.
“We honestly welcome compe- tition, as it holds us all up to a higher standard, and helps us con- tinue to innovate to be the best we can be,” Armstrong tells AdNews.
“With our creator community, TikTok really is a unique plat- form. The diversity of content and the creators that come onto TikTok just look different to any other platform.
“From a competitor perspec- tive, while we’re continuing to see challenges on the product side, what we believe in is that we will continue to innovate on our prod- uct, creating the best experience out there for our community. On TikTok, it’s not about your friend base or social graph, it’s uniquely about you and the discovery of content related to your interests.
“The For You feed is part of what enables that connection and discovery and one of the defining features of the TikTok platform. It’s central to the TikTok experi- ence and where most of our users spend their time.