How TikTok and the New York Times teamed up to boost small business ad demand
TikTok and the New York Times won at The Drum Awards for B2B 2022 in the Best Native or Sponsored Content Program category for ‘The TikTok Window’ campaign. Here, we find out what went into this successful campaign.
The TikTok Window created by TikTok and the NYT helped drive small businesses to advertise on the platform
This year, TikTok had a mission to find a content creator that could reach, educate, and inspire small and midsize business (SMB) audiences while bringing the creative, immersive and fun TikTok experience to life. It found the ideal collaborator in T Brand, the content studio of New York Times Advertising.
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The brief
To reach small businesses and encourage them to advertise on TikTok, the team set out to educate and inspire SMBs to consider the platform as a growth driver for their business.
To do that, it would need to leverage the global reach of the Times to share the stories of small businesses via a paid ad campaign on the NYT.
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The idea
TikTok videos were brought to life on nytimes.com with an innovative ad unit dubbed the ‘TikTok Window,’ which included custom, thumb-stopping video ad units mimicking the TikTok experience. The Vertical Video Flex XL unit was built by The Times for TikTok, a unique collaboration between the two brands. Users were then brought to a custom landing page, which showcased a variety of creative and educational content that rotated throughout key moments in the campaign.
In addition, it launched the Small Wins video series: 20 videos highlighting the small actions SMBs could take on TikTok, like posting their first video or utilizing creative tools leading to big rewards for their businesses. The videos were the first creative highlighted on the landing page, and on the ‘TikTok Window’ ad unit.
Elsewhere, TikTok displayed authentic success stories designed to educate viewers on the power of TikTok, how to get discovered, grow their businesses and drive performance. It then drove visitors to a landing page, where it provided tips to TikTok like a pro, how-to guides, SMB success stories and more resources to break down barriers to entry. Further collaborations included a holiday creator series, with user-generated content shown on the TikTok Window and 2 months of audio spots on The Daily, one of the NYT’s flagship podcasts.
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The results
’Small Wins’ videos ran through the TikTok window ad units. The landing page drew 371m impressions, 1.1m clicks and 13.5K AdsManager registrations.
Videos were posted on the organic TT4B TikTok channel, resulting in 25.7k impressions and 2.1k engagements. When the Holiday Creator Series ran across Times paid media, it garnered 9.4m impressions and 47K clicks. In total, podcast spots along with the TikTok Window Unit and Landing Page helped achieve over 28m global media impressions.
This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for B2B 2022. You can see all the winners here. The Drum Awards for Marketing are currently open for entry. Find out how you can enter now.