The Face magazine launches dedicated TikTok talent agency

Capturing the ‘creative spirit’ of TikTok

• Relaunched in 2019, The Face has been on a mission to maintain its relevance to today’s creators, evidenced by the launch of its Accelerators talent agency.

• Founded expressly to help TikTok creators to build their profile, the agency will also assist brands wishing to identify the most promising TikTok talent to partner with as well as turbocharge talent on the platform.

• The Face has built a strong relationship with TikTok, founded on a shared desire to surface and collaborate with new talent, notably in the form of a ’New TikTok Rebels’ feature which thrust creators Jender Anomie and Abby Roberts into the spotlight.

• Now The Face is keen to take that established relationship up a notch by working directly with established names and nurturing future stars to help spread their cultural impact beyond the confines of TikTok.

• While TikTok’s popularity has exploded at a grassroots level in recent years to draw over one billion users from 150 different countries, The Face believes it can play a useful role in encouraging ’major artists and brands’ to develop their voices on the platform.

• The Face Agency slots neatly into this gap by working with established artists to maximise the utility of the app for their needs.

Why it matters

• TikTok’s breakneck expansion has seen it rapidly gain outsize clout in the market with the app now having been downloaded an estimated 2bn times.

• This growth trajectory has been turbocharged by the pandemic with numbers on both sides of the Atlantic exploding. In the UK TikTok now counts 17m regular users while over in the US TikTok boasts of over 100m monthly active users.

• This success has forced others to sit up and take notice with brands like P&G seeking to harness the platform as a vehicle for more purpose-driven content such as a partnership with influencer Charli D’Amelio to promote social distancing with the hashtag #DistanceDance.

• These seismic shifts have also forced publishers to act, with News UK turning to its influencer agency The Fifth to help it recruit editors, a direct response to demand from creators to be on its books exclusively.