Like it or not, TikTok is becoming a serious advertising channel for more and more brands. Despite the sceptics who initially assumed the channel only appealed to children, companies are exploring TikTok more and more and increasing their advertising budgets for the platform.
But TikTok is not just another advertising channel where brands can repackage their existing ads and expect them to work. Different rules apply to building an audience here. Organic video, influencer marketing and long-term partnerships are only a few of the successful ways to build TikTok campaigns.
To help you get into the TikTok game, here is a selection of the ten best TikTok ads, with a short story behind each successful campaign.
The best TikTok advertising campaign examples
In the world before TikTok, we all had a fairly standard picture of what advertising looked like. Even across other digital media, brands found relatively common ways to tell their unique stories through ads.
Once TikTok entered the advertising arena, many familiar concepts and trends were thrown out, and brands had to learn this new advertising language if they wanted to adapt. On TikTok, ads are hashtags, user-generated content, campaigns co-created with partners and influencers, and much more.
That is why this list is about more than the most creative video or the best-looking commercial you will see on TikTok. It is about the campaigns that used every resource available on the platform and created the most engaging content.
Here is a list of the ten best TikTok ad examples.
1. Netflix — #WhatsYourPower
Netflix is on a mission to entertain the world. And what is more fun for Gen Z than following a viral user-generated content trend? That is exactly what Netflix marketers had in mind when they built the #WhatsYourPower campaign to promote the film Project Power.
The campaign encouraged users to use the hashtag with the branded filter, telling everyone what their own superpower was. Users went ahead and created original content based on the filter. This was probably the largest use of user-generated content for any brand on TikTok, with 112,000 people using the filter.
It is worth adding that Netflix is the second most followed brand on TikTok. Its actor interviews, funny sketches and clips from the latest shows all helped amplify the success of the #WhatsYourPower campaign.
2. Marc Jacobs — Perfect as I am
The Marc Jacobs creative team built an uplifting, positive message, "Perfect as I am", to promote the launch of its latest fragrance, Perfect, to Gen Z and millennials.
The branded hashtag challenge was launched in collaboration with the well-known TikTok influencer Rickey Thompson, and helped spread the positive self-love message across the platform.
Every TikTok user was encouraged to use the hashtag and show the world how they are perfect exactly as they are, which has generated more than 10 billion views to date and built enormous awareness for the fragrance.
3. Dunkin' and Charli D'Amelio
In the case of Dunkin' and Charli D'Amelio we are not talking about standard ads, but about a smart use of influencer marketing to introduce a product to a new audience. Dunkin' built a strong, lasting partnership with the influencer and used her channel as a shop window for a younger audience.
Charli D'Amelio, a TikTok star and proud Dunkin' customer, posted more than 120 videos featuring the brand's products. We cannot claim any of those videos came close to being a creative masterpiece, but the campaign as a whole worked remarkably well for the brand.
More specifically, there was a 57% increase in Dunkin' app downloads. There was also an overall 20% rise in cold brew sales on the day the new drink launched, and a 45% rise the day after.
4. Chewy — chatty chewable pets
Chewy, an American online pet food retailer, built its Chewy Chatty Pets campaign to connect authentically with the new generation of pet parents. The goal was to generate brand affinity and engagement by encouraging TikTok users to bring their pets' funniest inner monologues to life.
Two main factors made this a winning TikTok campaign.
- The #ChewyChattyPets branded hashtag challenge was built on the channel's existing trend of sharing quirky, relatable pet moments.
- Pet owners love giving their animals a personality, then watching everyone else do the same.
Over the three-day campaign the brand achieved an impressive 1.8 billion impressions on its #ChewyChattyPets hashtag. It also generated more than 578 user submissions, worth over 695 million video views, in under 24 hours.
Here is an example of user-generated content with the #ChewyChattyPets hashtag.
5. Crumbl Cookies — the rotating menu
Crumbl Cookies bakes and delivers irresistible cookies across America. As part of its rotating menu, the company launches new flavours weekly and makes them available for a limited time only. That concept creates fear of missing out among followers, which is perfect for TikTok campaigns.
As part of a two-month campaign, the company produced a slick new ad promoting the launch of each individual flavour. Combining strong video production with the scarcity effect in its ads, Crumbl achieved striking results.
Some of the campaign results:
- Reached 22 million accounts
- 2 million new followers, a 1,500% increase in follower count
- Made TikTok the brand's primary advertising channel
6. Amazon Fashion — the Pajama Jam challenge
Over the holiday season, Amazon Fashion was looking for a way to communicate its core values of inclusive fashion to a wider audience.
Working with the creative agency Movers+Shakers, they built a TikTok challenge that communicates that inclusivity, creates brand affinity and extends its holiday Pajama Jam in a fun, festive way.
The challenge was to walk a playful runway to the beat of their original song, wearing pyjamas ordered in advance from Amazon and tagged #PajamaJam. The brand ended up generating more than 13,000 videos using its original song and reached a total of 1 billion views in the first 24 hours.
7. Levi's — Future Finish
To overcome the sales challenges that came with the COVID-19 outbreak, Levi's built a smart, creative and engaging TikTok campaign called Future Finish that surprised its followers.
As part of the campaign, four TikTok influencers customised their denim, and the creators' videos were posted over the course of a week as in-feed ads. TikTok users had until the end of that week to tap the Shop Now button on the ads and buy the exclusive designs from the video.
In its own write-up, Levi's reported that view time on its influencer videos was double the TikTok platform average. Product views on the Future Finish pages of Levi.com more than doubled for every product featured in those videos.
8. Crocs — the #CrocTok ads
Even at first glance at the Crocs TikTok feed, you can clearly see that its content managers are having a lot of fun posting to this account. As most of the world knows, Crocs are not considered the most beautiful item to own. Rather than run away from that, the brand decided to embrace the image.
Its #CrocTok ads show plenty of parents and would-be fashionistas enjoying this quirky, colourful footwear, making sure followers have fun choosing their next pair. On the back of it, the brand has 824,000 followers and 5.5 million likes on TikTok.
9. Vessi — stop crying and put on some Vessi
Another brand with a sense of humour on TikTok is Vessi. This Canadian brand makes waterproof footwear and wants to have fun on social media. It combines organic growth with hilarious content and frequently partners with TikTok influencers who use humour in their posts.
For one of its latest campaigns, it partnered with Canadian TikToker Kris Collins, who created a collection of parody videos for the brand with a Shop Now call to action at the end. That helped the brand reach a wider audience while keeping the light-hearted tone of the ad.
For a smaller brand, the Vessi account is doing remarkably well on TikTok, with 164,000 followers and 1.8 million likes.
10. Gymshark — Change Your Life
As an early adopter of TikTok, the well-known British sportswear brand Gymshark was one of the first to build a wildly successful TikTok challenge as part of its Change Your Life campaign.
The brand encouraged its users to pick a fitness goal and upload it on the first day of 2019. Exactly 66 days later, on 7 March, they were asked to submit a photo of their final transformation. The winners took home a free year's supply of Gymshark products.
The campaign achieved remarkable results, with more than 1.9 million likes, 12,000 comments and 45 million views on the #gymshark66 hashtag.