- President Trump made an executive order to ban short-form video platform TikTok as early as mid-September.
- Now brands that have just recently tapped into TikTok content will have to modify their marketing strategies.
- Brands seem keen to adapt and will follow their customers to the next popular platforms.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
After President Trump made an executive order to ban short-form video platform TikTok, the social-media app's future in the US is uncertain. Although the legality of the measure is in question, users could lose access to their accounts as early as mid-September.
Now brands that have just recently tapped into TikTok content will have to modify their marketing strategies.
Kombucha maker GT's Living Foods partnered with TikTok this summer for a viral campaign with more than 3 billion views. Now founder and CEO GT Dave is hesitant to market with the platform again if its presence in the US becomes restricted.
"We certainly have other campaigns in the works and we're considering TikTok to be an aspect of it, but nowhere near the degree that this last one was," Dave told Business Insider.
Another fear is that brands could lose following just by associating with TikTok. "Right now we're in such a heavy cancel culture that sometimes you can be canceled if you're even near something or someone that's getting canceled," Dave said.
But brands seem keen to adapt. The pandemic has shown entrepreneurs the importance of shifting and this restriction is peanuts compared to the last five months of extreme highs and lows.
Here's how they're shifting their marketing strategies.
Brands will go wherever their customers go
If customers will no longer have access to TikTok, brands will move on to the next popular platform.
Clothing brand Ivory Ella has solidified a strong customer base of GenZers thanks to its growth on TikTok. About 80% of its content consists of reposts from teen influencers and creators dancing in tie-dye tees and sweatshirts displaying the brand's signature elephant logo.
But now it may be time to switch things up. Cofounder Richard Henne said the company is community driven above all. "We're utilizing these new platforms, TikTok being the most recent, to drive brand awareness and to go where the views and the users are," he said.
GT's sees changing platforms as an opportunity to keep the brand fresh. "We're a brand that likes to constantly reinvent ourselves," Dave said. "You never want to feel like you're a one trick pony."
Instagram Reels swoops in at the perfect time
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TikTok showed brands that short-form video is the best way to reach young audiences, but there are increasingly more platforms offering this access.
"It's more about an evolution of content for this type of consumer," Henne said. "This new format has been a way for them to have themselves heard and also interact with brands in a different way that hasn't really been available until now."
Brands are already looking to Instagram's recently launched Reels feature— it mimics TikTok's quick cuts and editing all while keeping users in the same app.
Instagram Reels provides a different option for a similar expression, Dave said. "It's no coincidence that Instagram launched their Reels right at the peak of TikTok being announced that it might shut down."
Despite what happens to TikTok, Henne said it's wise for brands to get used to creating short-form content — his key goal for the rest of the year is to master it. Ivory Ella has about a dozen posts on the social video community Triller and has been leaning into IG Reels in the past week.
"Triller and Reels right now seem the most promising for this type of format, but I'm very confident that it will only be a matter of time before more players emerge in this field," he said.
TV and streaming ads could be the next frontier for direct-to-consumer brands
Some brands have been hesitant to buy television ads because social media is more cost effective. But that ROI practically shifted overnight when the pandemic hit, as Americans stayed home and consumed more shows and movies.
Michelle Cordeiro Grant, the founder and CEO of lingerie brand LIVELY, said the company bought its first TV commercial in April. It opened up the brand to more Baby Boomers, who made up only a single-digit percentage of the brand's consumer base, now up by 30% because of those ads.
"We've never used television as an awareness tactic, but now it's more profitable and more efficient than even our Facebook channels and digital channels," Cordeiro Grant said.
GT's is also looking to streaming ads as an additional marketing channel. The company is testing ads on Hulu to appeal to a more dedicated audience that will see the entire video instead of swiping past it.
"A lot of people inside and outside of the social media world are reassessing social media in its totality," Dave said. "I wouldn't say we're completely pivoting or completely turning our back from social media, period. What we're learning is now there's more than one world right now."
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