Launched in October 2020, the objective of the Prime Video TikTok account was to attract a younger target audience of 13-20 year olds, on a platform where brands are still having difficulty adapting to the specific codes. There are many young people from the “banlieues”, the suburbs outside Paris, within this target group. These areas are commonly associated with the ills of French society and problems linked with immigration. And the young people who live there consequently seem disconnected from other youths in France. But, with TikTok, they can share a common space, where they can express themselves and interact with other people. For Prime Video this represented a great opportunity to share a whole new vision of youth today and convey a message of hope and inclusion.

To attract a younger audience and to stand out right from the start on this new platform, Prime Video did what it does best: it created a series. A new genre of series: the first 100% TikTok series.

It was called “Cités” and respected the platform’s codes and audience. It’s an ode to youth and to France’s cultural heritage and aims at demonstrating that the two are not disconnected. “Cités” conveys a message of hope and inclusion.

It’s made up of 12 one-minute episodes (the maximum length allowed on TikTok), in which we follow the everyday lives of various young people, who live their lives to the beat of quotations from French celebrities (musicians, authors, poets, etc), whose words have never sounded as true as they do today. The casting, filming, editing and post-production, i.e. every single step of the production, was carried out directly on TikTok,

While “Cités” is definitely a 100% TikTok series, it is first and foremost a Prime Video original series and for Amazon that meant it deserved a PR launch of the same level as any other program from their catalogue. From the poster for the series to the interviews and premiere (live on TikTok), each promotional stage was also designed to attract journalists, both mainstream and trade.

The choice of the director was also highly significant. By selecting Abd Al Malik, a rapper, but also an Officer of Arts and Letters, Prime Video personified the project with a reputable director and true ambassador for the series in the eyes of the press.

Every single step of the production of “Cités” was carried out directly on TikTok. First of all, the casting one month before the shoot (via a TikTok challenge that recorded more than 45 000 participations to become actors in the series). The episodes were filmed using an iPhone and all the editing and post-production (transitions, effects, filters, etc.) were of course done using the platform’s integrated tools. In the form of a premiere, the series aired for the first time via a TikTok live stream which was watched by more than 59K real time viewers. The 12 episodes were then uploaded as one to TikTok via a dedicated H5 page and accessible for a week, before becoming permanently available on Prime Video France’s TikTok account.

+27M views for the episodes in 1 week.

+100 articles in the press, in more than 10 countries.

+12 national TV mentions including TV NEWS and 3 talk shows.

3 national press covers

10 national radio mentions including a 50-minute report on Europe 1, the most listened to radio in France.

At the end of March 2021, Cités will be broadcast live on the public TV channel “culturebox" during the national festival “Spring of poetry”

+45k participations in the casting via the TikTok challenge launched earlier and 105M hashtag views

+45k followers of the Prime Video TikTok account in the first week, a rise of 20%!

+60K real time viewers for the TikTok premiere