Screen addiction is a topic of our time, and TikTok believes digital experiences should bring joy and play a positive role in how people express themselves, discover ideas, and connect. TikTok wants their community to feel in control of their time using the app. More than that, research shows that being more aware of how we spend our time can help us be more intentional about the decisions we make. That's why new screen time management features were created and launched globally and with a global campaign that ran simultaneously in 23 different countries and cultures, in 18 languages.

TikTok created new screen time management features and a campaign that helps users to control their screen time by scheduling breaks, sleep reminders and also by providing screen time reports. To engage the audience, we told a story about our own thumbs - because they are the ones who work harder in our mobile life.

In 2018 it took an average person a year to scroll the equivalent distance of climbing Mount Everest. In 2022, it took them only a month.

So we came up with The Tired Thumbs as a band and Thumbs Just Wanna Have Fun, a Girls Just Wanna Have Fun parody. This way, the idea dressed the brand message with a fun and catchy layer: instead of telling people they needed to pay more attention to how much time they spent on TikTok,we told them their thumbs were exhausted and just wanted to have some fun.

To impact the new screen time management tool's target audience, we created an asset that is only displayed after the user spends a total of one one continuous hour on the platform throughout the day. And to create a global asset that would make sense to so many different cultures and retain users' enough to explain how to set the new screen time feature, we mixed the universal language of music with one of the universal languages of TikTok, the lyric video.

The new screen time management features were developed to be easily accessible within the platform and offer an intuitive use of its features. In a few steps, users can schedule breaks, add sleep reminders and access the screen time report.

To create a global asset that would make sense to so many different cultures and retain users' enough to explain how to set the new screen time feature, we mixed the universal language of music with one of the universal languages of TikTok, the lyric video.

We took advantage of this native format and of the 80’s nostalgia that was trending on TikTok at the moment. The characters and the animation were co-created with a hit-maker, a TikTok creator called Danny Casale. In contact with TikTok offices all over the world, we translated the lyrics to 18 languages, making our enjoy-some-offline-time message reach every continent on Earth.

With more than 2.1 billion views worldwide, our video reaches 25M users daily globally and became TikTok's most favorited video of all time. A single creative was capable of engaging people from 23 different countries, making the users reached by the campaign explore the new tool. The brand ended up announcing that the screen time limit of 60 minutes would be the new default settings for teen accounts.