At the heart of this brief is to showcase a different side of the TikTok platform, as well as showcase a different side and perception of an influencer. Amongst the swathes of Dixie D’Amelio’s there is a new type of influencer that TikTok wants to hero and support. Influencers with content that have genuine user applicability, enabling people to literally learn on TikTok.

TikTok cemented its place as the digital platform of 2020: bringing entertainment, fun, memes, lols and music to its 800 million active users worldwide – particularly during the national lockdown of Summer 2020 where many of us sat bored in the house, in the house bored.

But such rapid growth amongst a core younger target audience alienated an older generation of Instagrammers, Facebookers and Tweeters. Why would they need another app on their phone? Particularly one that they perceived to be silly and superficial. TikTok had a perception problem.

Our brief was to increase relevance and grow brand love, by highlighting the educational and useful content that provided value to users’ daily lives. Getting to an idea that could improve usage, likeability & association and celebrate the creators on the platform.

We started by creating a bonafide sub-brand and hashtag: #LearnOnTikTok. This championed real creator learning content, fueled by the multi-million dollar Creator Learning Fund. The foundations were in place.

We then needed a creative platform simple enough to connect diverse markets (UK & DE) & audiences, and shift perceptions in a big way. Our idea, the A-Z of TikTok. It’s beauty is its simplicity. Just as we have always used the alphabet to teach kids about the world, we used the A-Z construct as a large structural campaign idea to enable TikTok to highlight an array of dazzlingly different and surprising subjects – all brimming with fun, educational content from the app. Equally, it enabled us to serve this content across relevant moments as well as bigger scalable media (EG: TV) that could push out to a broader audience in mass channels.

TikTok’s growth amongst a core younger audience alienated an older generation. We needed a focus on educational and utility-based content as our key to convincing our target (18-34) of the value of using TikTok.

To solve this problem, we knew the perfect place to start. The platform itself. TikTok has a community of creators innovating new ways of learning architecture, pottery, sign language, baking, sexual health, football trickshots & fitness tutorials and the list keeps going. We needed to bring this truth to the forefront.

With two diverse markets, our challenge was to devise a media-neutral creative platform that could house the breadth of TikTok content. Identifying the right individual and organisations for us to hero across the board to convince our target audience of the usefulness of the platform.

The campaign put TikTok content front and centre, and championed real content creators, putting authentic content from the platform as the hero in each execution.

We adopted a contextual approach with relevant targeted interests in social media, OOH, online video, programmatic digital. On the platform itself we activated the campaign in-app formats and a dedicated A-Z campaign landing page - including TikTok learning LIVEs where creators shared their knowledge across an array of topics. Partnerships with the British Red Cross, MensHealth, Stonewall, LadBible, PinkNews, and more, spread awareness of learning content as well!

We even had one of the smartest men in Britain, Stephen Fry, voice our TV spot. We made sure to pay the same attention to our German friends - identifying a need for distinct left brain and right brain TV executions that flexed to rational academic, scientific learning content or to artistic, creative learning content.

The campaign was a huge success. And Stephen Fry wasn’t the only fan, whose mind was changed on TikTok.

Non-user likability uplift +29%

Download +14%

Associations (Educational Content +19% & Empowering Content +15%)

And it wasn’t just new users who felt a change - the campaign built further brand love with campaign recall in the UK being 22%.

On performance (Facebook Google) channels, the A to Z campaign performed 10 - 20% above benchmark for 25+

Engagement with in-app learning ecosystem during the campaign period 436.1M

We even went again this year, spreading the internet with digital ads that told surprising 'Did you know?' facts! Taking over UK cities with bold murals celebrating our creators facts! Letting people know each & every time, you can #LearnOnTikTok