As a sound-on platform, it was essential that TikTok’s sonic identity had the potential to match, if not surpass, the strength of our visual identity. Our creative strategy addressed this by enhancing brand consistency and deepening user engagement. By ubiquitously embedding a Sonic Logo, DNA Track and Sonic Stickers, we ensured our brand was instantly identifiable across all our touchpoints. Validated by Kantar research, with 80% of users globally recognizing our sonic identity and 84% associating it with positive attributes, this strategy was pivotal in creating the most rapidly recognized brand sounds of all time.

88% of users say that sound is essential to the TikTok experience, and 72% of our audience associate specific songs with TikTok, but so far our brand identity was visually focused. As our reach expanded across audiences, we recognized an opportunity for a strategic branding shift through the creation of a sonic identity. Our objectives:

Brand recognition & off-platform attribution: With the rise in shortform video platforms, we needed to make sure our users' funny, heartfelt or informative videos were recognized as TikTok original content, even when they are shared to other platforms.

Brand perception: To dispel misconceptions about TikTok being about lip-sync and dance trends, we aimed to clarify and enrich our brand identity, ensuring people know TikTok as a trusted, inclusive space for diverse creativity.

Community engagement: Aligning to our mission to inspire creativity and bring joy, our sonic identity needed to fuel our community’s creative expression.

We designed TikTok's sonic branding to resonate across all global brand touchpoints, addressing our diverse global audience of over 1 billion users. TikTok’s Music Impact Report revealed that users exhibit a stronger preference for international music compared to the average music listener. This led us to craft a sonic identity that mirrors our audience's eclectic taste in global sounds—from emerging K-pop tracks to Brazil's vibrant baile funk genre.

Our Sonic Logo and longer-form DNA Track are engineered to blend universal appeal with cultural specificity. They feature a distorted 808 sub-bass—a tribute to the hip-hop and bass music genres that thrive on our platform—and an ascending E Major 7th melody, which is emotionally inviting and designed to resonate universally. The UGC-inspired and genre-agnostic approach of our longer-form music ensures our sonic branding is adaptable to various cultural settings.

For example, during Brazil’s 2024 Carnival, we tailored our DNA Track to reflect the local festive spirit in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. This special edition incorporated traditional Brazilian instruments like the mandolin, tambourine and surdo drum, enhancing the Carnival atmosphere and ensuring deep cultural resonance. Such adaptations underscore our brand’s commitment to engaging with the diverse experiences of our users, making TikTok an integral part of their cultural landscapes.

Since its inception, TikTok has grown rapidly among young adult audiences and has been expanding the platform's appeal across all age groups. Recognizing that some people less familiar with TikTok misunderstood it as a place for dance trends and were not aware of the creative depth and breadth on TikTok, we knew we needed to strengthen the brand's identity with our diverse global target audiences.

In response to this challenge, we conducted competitor analysis, stakeholder interviews, creative ideation and collaborative audio moodboard workshops, to develop a sonic identity that could transcend generations and genres, and resonate with our global audience.

Leveraging the insights gleaned from this work, we created a sonic brand that feels authentic to our diverse global audience and is highly recognizable, so that people instantly know that the funny, heartfelt or informative content they see and love originated from TikTok.

Through extensive brand and competitor analysis, stakeholder interviews and creative workshops, we uncovered crucial strategic insights:

TikTok's sonic identity needed to transcend generations and genres to resonate with our global community.

56% of TikTok users resonate most strongly with human, unpolished content, so our sonic identity needed to capture the platform’s authentic essence.

Entertainment brands have successfully harnessed sonic branding as a tool to prime users for entertainment.

Recognizing TikTok’s remix culture, we sought to redefine what is possible with brand sound by creating a sonic identity usable not only by the brand, but also our users. This approach would differentiate TikTok as the originator of diverse and engaging content, reinforce our brand identity, enhance platform recognition, and fuel our community’s creativity through sound.

Finally, our sonic identity required flexibility to evolve with the ever-changing media landscape, ensuring continued relevance across our diverse markets and touchpoints.

"The Sound of TikTok" is a sonic identity that embodies the platform’s vibrant creative spirit and diverse community. We leveraged TikTok's unique features to develop an interactive sonic brand, allowing creators to engage with our distinct sounds, fostering new content creation. This ensures our content is instantly recognizable as TikTok, distinguishing our brand on a global scale.

Our sonic identity amplifies the brand message through:

Universality: a sound that transcends genres, ages and regions, enhancing global resonance and inclusivity.

Raw & Unpolished: Incorporating user-generated sounds speaks to TikTok's ethos of authentic creative expression.

Onomatopoeia & Simplicity: The two-beat Sonic Logo reflects TikTok’s iconic name, designed for recognition and impact.

Remix-ability: We created Sonic Sticker assets specifically for community interaction, encouraging creators to explore and integrate our brand sound into their content.

These elements collectively strengthen TikTok’s brand identity, ensuring our message of creative freedom resonates worldwide.

The implementation of TikTok’s sonic branding has been transformative, with our Sonic Logo becoming one of the most rapidly recognized brand sounds in history. Our key results directly answer our initial objectives:

Recognition, Reach and Attribution: TikTok’s Sonic Logo has reached 80% recognition globally (Kantar 2024), and outperforms over 130 sonic brands on attribution (Soundout 2023). There has also been a 15% uplift in brand attribution as a result of the Sonic Logo appearing outside the TikTok platform.

Brand Perception / Change in Behaviour: The initiative has not only achieved a 25% increase in trustworthiness but also enhanced brand perception, with 84% of users associating the sound with positive emotions.

Engagement: Our sonic identity drives our community's creative expression, with 28,400+ organic UGC creations featuring our Sonic Stickers and DNA Track. Additionally, our campaign adaptations have resonated culturally with millions of diverse audiences globally.