TikTok - The New Instagram?
By Hannah Schmidt-Rees
In terms of fashion marketing, fashion brands have slowly taken to social media (primarily Instagram) to gain brand awareness and generate sales for their products. However, with new social media apps on the rise, fashion brands need to adapt to keep up with the younger lucrative market.
The latest known internet craze is an app named TikTok. Founded in 2012, TikTok is used to create and share short lip-sync and comedy videos. Hitting one billion downloads in 2019, TikTok is now one of the most dowloaded apps of the decade. Targeting the teenage market, 41% of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 16 and 24, with 90% of its users using the app daily for around 40 minutes per session. What better way for brands to get in front of the eyes of their target market?
British brand Burberry created a TikTok challenge, asking users to contort their hands into the letters ‘TB’ (to stand for Thomas Burberry). 30,000 videos and 57 million views later, Burberry has created a successful, albeit more causal form of social media marketing. Watch the original here.
Another brand to market in TikTok is Calvin Klein. Using a different approach, Calvin Klein released short videos of celebrities (namely A$AP Rocky, Kendall Jenner and Shawn Mendes, who were also featured in other Calvin Klein campaigns on other platforms) lounging in Calvin Klein or talking about their experiences and their #mycalvins. Their video of Shawn Mendes created a 30% engagement rate, resulting engagement rate (measured by like and click-throughs) which overall became its most viewed digital campaign ever.
Even the luxury brand Celine recently announced that 18 year old TikTok e-boy star Noen Eubanks (with 7 million followers) will be the face of their new campaign. Naming him a ‘teen idol’ on their Instagram posts, posting images of him in their latest collection. I personally find it amazing that a brand like Celine, with such a rich and iconic history chooses an 18 year old TikTok influencer, instead of a model or actor. It’s perfect for appealing to the younger market, using a face of interest and changing Celine’s brand perception to better suit a younger market.
Even brands that haven’t joined TikTok have grown in popularity. For example, the tag #LouisVuitton has 137 million views and #Gucci has 304 million. Many brands who decide to pay TikTok influencers to advertise their brand may be out of pocket around $5,000 (for an influencer with a few million followers), but the engagement rates is around 50%, making the deal way worth it. Compare this to the same scenario on Instagram, which would result in a $12,000 rate per post, resulting in a 2-5% engagement rate.
A major part of TikTok is that the content created is less polished and more casual. In a time where traditional marketing, both in online, print and social media is now predictable, fashion’s target customers are now expecting advertisements and therefore pay less attention to them. Brands use TikTok to create marketing material by using their creators (who are in-turn the brands’ target markets) to create more relatable content and by using well known creators to create a point of interest, or by using a quickly rising platform that all brands’ target markets use.
A major point of success for brands to advertise on TikTok in the future is to mirror the trending memes and challenges, creating a bigger connection with consumers than more traditional social media marketing.
Now fashion brands that are using TikTok as a platform to advertise their products and gain awareness isn’t the only way TikTok is greatly affecting the fashion industry.
Say hello to the e-boys and e-girls. ‘E’ as in internet, ‘e’ for electronic or ‘e’ as in emo? Who knows. Taking alternative fashion trends and mixing them all together, mainly goth, skater, alt, scene and grunge, I would say that the aesthetic are the modern-age MySpace scene kids. Who knew goth and scene would be making a return?
Social media has been dominated by the same mainstream aesthetic, the neutral colours, hourglass bodies and glam makeup, but finally there’s been a major shift, and it seems to be the antithesis, a counter culture if you will. Darker colours are in excess or contrasted with soft pastels, band shirts, monochromatic stripes, chokers, heavy jewellery and alternative makeup are the calling cards of the newest trend. Pushing the boundaries of masculinity and femininity in fashion, self-expression reigns supreme. A main part of e-boy fashion is the integration of traditionally feminine aspects, such as makeup, earrings, dyed hair and painted nails.
Whilst the e-boy and e-girl aesthetic isn’t brand driven, it has certainly led to a major rise in the younger generation becoming more interested in fashion and in-turn an increase in fashion sales. TikTok creates a space where users can directly see what their community is wearing, especially through these new TikTok influencers. By going out a mirroring this style (either through aesthetic interest or interest in the influencer), the general aesthetic of the fashion of the younger generation has taken a major shift, and TikTok is the reason for that. And apart from Instagram affecting fashion years ago, it seems that TikTok should be viewed on the same level.