Chinese start-up company ByteDance was founded in 2012 by then 29-year-old Zhang Yiming in Beijing. That year, the company launched its first mobile app, Toutiao, an AI-powered daily curated feed of news content personalized to users. In 2021, the company was valued at US$78 billion, with its current apps including TikTok, Helo (an Indian social media app), Vigo Video (formerly Hypstar), Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), BaBe (an Indonesian news and content app) and Huoshan (a Chinese short-form video app).
The global powerhouse TikTok has been celebrated as leading the way in mobile apps, particularly in China, where mobile-social commerce reigns supreme. Launched in 2017, the social media app, noted for its addictive quality and high levels of engagement, allows users to create short videos set to music and sound effects. Appealing to the creativity of its audience, users can create and upload a video – up to 15 seconds long (although you can string together four separate videos to create 60-second pieces) – incorporating music with filters and editing effects, or showing the user lip-synching to a song. TikTok users have followers, likes and comments, and sometimes spend hours browsing numerous user-generated short videos. The app had about 1.1 billion active global users in 2021 and was available in more than 150 different markets, with offices in Beijing, Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, Seoul and Tokyo.
In 2021, Zhang Yiming noted the importance of TikTok establishing a direct channel of communication with its most influential users (TikTok educators, beauty influencers, fashion influencers and other key user demographics) so that it could continue to offer improved service and communication with its target audiences.
The company also wanted to use direct marketing communications to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertisements, to find more ways to monetize its hundreds of millions of users and to build brand loyalty.

In 2017, Musical.ly, the original competitor to TikTok, became popular among digital natives due to its novelty value and easy-to-use video creation interface. In 2018, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly and merged it with TikTok, resulting in a phenomenal rise in popularity. In 2021, TikTok was the fastest-growing social media platform, accounting for more than 30 per cent annual member growth, outdoing Facebook and Instagram, which each recorded growth of about 5 to 10 per cent growth. Although Facebook and YouTube remained the favoured platforms among the older population, TikTok was the most popular social media app among younger audiences, with the majority (69 per cent) from Generation Z (ages 16 to 24), while 25 per cent were aged 25 and older. Most users were female (60 per cent) and spent an average of 46 minutes on the app per day.
Many celebrities also flocked to the app, such as Reese Witherspoon, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Dua Lipa and Kendall Jenner, as a way to stay relevant and connected to fans during the COVID pandemic. Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok accounts with zero followers can get millions of views on a new video thanks to the viral nature of the algorithm, thus adding to its appeal.

Questions

1. What do you think are the reasons behind TikTok’s strategy of targeting influencers and content creators with its direct marketing campaigns?
2. Discuss the potential benefits and limitations of direct marketing communications for TikTok. In your answer, discuss how it has used an integrated marketing communications approach to complement its direct marketing campaigns.
3. Discuss direct marketing techniques, other than those presented in this case study, that TikTok could use as part of its future campaigns.
4. Discuss how you would manage a direct marketing campaign for TikTok for a chosen event.