4 Foods Brands Crushing It On TikTok
Social media continues to be a powerful tool in digital marketing for food brands. In more recent years, the rise of TikTok has shifted how businesses market and the audience they target. What is the reason for this? A growing population of individuals online with shorter attention spans.
With the growing trends on TikTok, brands are targeting all age demographics. For example, 67% of TikTok users are of the Gen Z population, but the numbers aged up during the pandemic and have continued to rise. The average TikTok consumer has an attention span of 8 seconds.
The US has the largest TikTok audience, and the numbers are growing for all ages on the platform. In 2022, 47% of the users were under 30 years old. Although this platform tends to market to Gen Zers, the app has aged up significantly for ages 31-49. This group has jumped to 42%. As more age groups dive into TikTok, there are exponential growth opportunities.
Businesses have 8 seconds to “wow” a user or the consumer will move on to the next visually appealing piece of content. When the pandemic started, food trends sky-rocketed on TikTok. Even Gordon Ramsey hopped on board!
While millennials are generally called the “me generation,” Gen Z is the “true gen,” meaning expressing individual truth. In addition, this generation is the first of the “digital natives” Not only has this generation been brought up with an abundance of technology at their disposal, but they grew up in the health and wellness era.
With several generations constantly online, always on the go, and health-conscious, it’s raised a challenge for food marketing strategies. Thriving brands on TikTok have noticed this and have taken digital marketing to the next level.
What are these brands doing that makes them so successful? Let’s take a look.
Oreos: Mondelez International
The company that owns some of the most popular snack brands in the world, like Oreos, created its TikTok account in September 2020. One year later, the company started direct-to-consumer relationships with its audience through the platform. Mondelez’s most popular brand, Oreos, now has around 1.4 million followers. The company’s revenue did increase by 2.8% in 2020.
How are they crushing it on TikTok?
This business, as a whole, takes into account “short” and “fun” videos. For example, Oreos, the classic cookie brand, pairs its familiar products with young personalities. The videos Oreo creates on their TikTok remind fans of their childhood through short, snappy recipe videos that keep the audience entertained. Oreos also pairs DIY recipe videos with more professional ones, creating a more personable social media grid.
Along with this strategy, the company also runs vast integrated marketing campaigns to encourage customers to engage and potentially win giveaways. But, of course, nothing screams Gen Z more than, “win this for free!”
Taco Bell
With 1.7 million followers on TikTok, Taco Bell is well-known for its fun and personable videos. Taco Bell knows most of us won’t click on tedious or repetitive ads, so they’ve gone the alternative route. Instead, they find ways to incorporate TikTok trends such as short songs, creative artists, and funny influencers into their videos about Taco Bell’s products.
How are they crushing it on TikTok?
They make it simple with TikTok videos that are short, fun, and relatable. In addition, Taco Bell knows how to engage with its audience. They use TikTok videos to incentivize users to sign up as a new rewards member on the app and, in return, win a free food item.
Taco Bell joined the TikTok creative exchange to launch its digital marketing strategy. This exchange helps advertisers connect with creative experts to create short brand videos for TikTok specifically. The company was paired with two influencers for the initial campaign and received 4.5 million impressions. This boost in visibility gave Taco Bell a gain in followers and the ability to connect with its audience directly.
A poll by the younger users on the platform over the past six months verified that 43% have purchased a Taco Bell item and continue to frequent the restaurant chain.
Dunkin
The infamous Dunkin opened their TikTok account in October 2019. The company now has 3.1 million followers and 23.2 million likes on TikTok. To ensure their account was a success, they teamed up with a well-known influencer of Gen Z, Charli D’Amelio, in 2020. Within the first five days of the campaign launch, there was a 57 % increase in app downloads and a 65% increase in overall sales.
How are they crushing it on TikTok?
Influencer marketing helps brands improve their social media presence and boost sales. Today the company pairs with several TikTok influencers to gain more traction and, in return, the business benefits. They currently work with a long list of influencers to create more personalized experiences with the TikTok audience.
Their TikTok marketing strategy includes paying employees at work to film short videos, and it has gained much traction. Along with pairing highly followed influencers, the brand promotes proper hashtags and integrates their message within the hottest TikTok trends.
Through influencer partnerships, Dunkin holds the top seat for the world’s largest coffee and donut shop.
Chipotle
Chipotle strives to cultivate a better world by serving responsibly sourced food with wholesome ingredients. The American chain combines healthy, fast, and casual in its restaurants. They launched their TikTok account in 2018 and gained 1.3 million followers and 19.1 million likes. Chipotle promotes its social campaigns to engage Gen Zers. 50% of Chipotle’s TikTok followers are zoomers.
How are they crushing it on TikTok?
The brand has a more casual tone on TikTok. The company keeps the social content down-to-earth and relatable. Like many large brands, Chipotle partnered with Gen Z influencers to implement branded challenges that engage the audience. For example, the #ChipotleLidFlip challenge created by a Chipotle employee went viral and boosted the brand’s audience.
When metaverse launched, Chipotle launched a campaign game on Roblox that encouraged followers to play by offering a free burrito to the first 100,000 gamers. This example shares how the brand pairs online and offline promotions incredibly well.
Furthermore, they market on TikTok in a humorous and light-hearted manner. They implement this strategy through comedy sketches and reposting goofy fan videos, like using a Chipotle burrito as a dumbbell for an “arm day.” The company also does a great job sharing behind-the-scenes of Chipotle’s kitchens and employees.
Chipotle is an excellent example of how taking the humorous and fun route in digital marketing can reap massive benefits; reach and awareness. The brand shows us that leveraging a business account to grow brand existence can be both fun for the community and successful for the company.
How can you crush it on TikTok like these leading food brands?
Influencer engagement.
All of the companies above utilize the top influencers on the platform to gain followers and more engagement. This is a great way to build brand awareness and relationships with influencers for future marketing.
Trendy content.
They strategize a plan by researching their target audience and digging into what they like, click on, and engage with—creating a relatable campaign that hooks them into wanting to consume more of that content!
Paid Advertising.
The leading food brands on TikTok also pay attention to their paid advertising. Currently, the platform has five options for paid ads.
- Branded Hashtags
- In-feed Ads
- Branded effects
- Top view Ads
- Brand Takeover
TikTok Optimization, a.k.a. Hashtags.
Brands can organically build more awareness by utilizing hashtags such as #socialmediamarketing #B2Btips, and hashtags should be created into the videos with specific content related to the advertisement; that way, when a customer visits a landing page, they see the ad content immediately.
Due to its growing popularity, TikTok is a platform bound to make your business excel with the right tools and strategy.
For more information about food brands and marketing success, check out our ChuckJoe blog on Ben & Jerry’s!
Sources:
https://adage.com/creativity/work/chipotle-mexican-grill-lid-flip-challenge/2252301
https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/how-food-brands-can-win-tiktok/2442711
https://rightmetric.co/insight-library/how-chipotle-became-the-most-followed-food-brand-on-tiktok
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