Advertisers who rely on TikTok as a key digital marketing tool rushed to prepare contingency plans this week, realizing that the popular Chinese-owned social media app may not be saved before a ban takes effect. in the United States this Sunday.
One marketing executive described the situation as a moment of “full alarm” for the advertising world, after months of assuming that a solution would be found to keep the short video app active.
“It seemed incredible, even a few weeks ago, to imagine that TikTok would not exist,” said Kerry Perse, founder of the marketing firm Influence & Inspire Consulting and former social media director at the Omnicom group’s OMD media agency.
“We all thought that any access problem to the TikTok application would be slow and prolonged,” he added.
Read: How a TikTok ban would work and why users can’t easily avoid it
Chinese tech firm ByteDance faces a Jan. 19 deadline to sell TikTok’s U.S. assets or accept an unprecedented ban on the app, used by 170 million Americans, for national security reasons.
TikTok plans to close its US operations on Sunday unless it receives a last-minute reprieve, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser said the new administration plans to implement measures “to prevent TikTok from disappearing,” but it was not immediately clear whether Trump, who takes office on Monday, could legally do so.
“I think after a long time feeling like this was like the story of the lying shepherd, we might now be seeing the real wolf,” said Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3.
If a ban occurs, more than $11 billion in annual US advertising spending would be at stake, according to a forecast by marketing group WARC Media.
Most of that spending would likely shift to platforms where advertisers are already established and running short video ad campaigns, primarily Meta’s Instagram and Alphabet’s YouTube Shorts, four ad agency sources told Reuters.
TikTok staff appeared to be in the dark about what exactly would happen to the app starting Sunday, according to the sources, although two of them noted that TikTok was offering favorable refund terms in case services were interrupted midway. advertising campaigns. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Even as the ban approached, the company continued to roll out new features to advertisers, such as a tool in testing that was set to launch Thursday to make it easier to create, modify and bulk upload ads, according to an email this week described to Reuters.
It also planned to set up a booth at the World Economic Forum meeting of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, next week, after hosting cocktail parties at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month.
Meanwhile, brands and content creators alike were downloading their data en masse in case the app became inaccessible starting Sunday, hoping to salvage at least some of the fruits of their labor.
Read: Trump will prevent TikTok from ‘disappearing’ if there is a deal on the table, advisor reveals
An influencer, who promotes cereals and beauty products in her videos, posted Tuesday advising her nearly 16,000 followers how to save their videos.
“This is how you can download your TikTok data so you don’t lose literally everything you’ve had in the last five years,” Maria Slate said, grimacing, as the words “okay, I’m fine” appeared above her head.
The sentiment marked a notable change from last month, when advertisers told Reuters they were in no rush to pull their advertising budgets from TikTok, despite a US appeals court upholding the law requiring a divestment or ban.
As of Jan. 8, ad spending on TikTok was projected to increase 57% in the first two months of 2025, according to Guideline.ai, a research firm that tracks pre-booking data from major ad agencies.
TikTok has become a powerful tool for advertisers looking to reach young Americans in particular in recent years, growing from 2% to 20% of social media ad spending in the US since 2020, its first full year of operation in the country, according to Guideline.ai.
Part of that power comes from the platform’s influencer promotion and online shopping culture, which has made it a reliable driver of e-commerce sales.
E-Marketer, another research firm, predicted late last year that about 43.8% of TikTok users in the US would have made a purchase on the platform by the end of 2024, a higher proportion than on Meta services. like Facebook and Instagram.
With information from Reuters
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