Regardless of their niche market, enterprises need to adapt to the rising “Shoppertainment” trend to drive consumer engagement and generate business opportunities, TikTok regional branding partnerships head for Southeast Asia David Jay Gomez shared in an exclusive interview with Newsbytes.PH.
In the Philippines, TikTok has been active in running events both online and offline, putting a focus on its suite of tools bolstered by live events to reach a greater audience in activities like product launches or campaign runs.
“We’re still learning our way through, it’s an exciting space indeed. And it’s also complementing, we recently had a partner client who actually did a mall activation with our hashtag challenges. These are the kinds of events that we are looking at and I agree with you that it is something we will continue to do,” he remarked.
Beyond augmenting online campaigns with live events, he also cited a TikTok-commissioned survey which revealed that 91% of Filipinos are using the social media platform for discovering new entertainment content and emerging trends, while 73% are likewise learning about new brands and products through both educational and entertaining short-form videos.
Although he was unable to provide the specific names, Gomez recounted how businesses like paint and pharmaceuticals are gaining traction through the TikTok platform, the former offering content where it generates different combinations to achieve a certain color tone, and the former giving a glimpse on how they stock up the shelves for the customers.
“What they love about the platform is being able to engage. In this platform, the amount of Q&As and engagements from the users to the owners is crazy. That gives them insights,” Gomez explained.
Between the period of July 2021 to 2022, categories like news and entertainment (70%), beauty and fashion (57%), and baby and parenting (53%) saw a growth spike in video views on the platform. However, the Philippines is not considered by TikTok as a high-growth market in the Asia Pacific region.
“TikTok is really where many trends are born. We’re still catching up. TikTok shop was just launched in the Philippines a couple of months ago. It has plenty of space to evolve, but where my bets are is that eventually trends would start streamlining itself in the platform,” he prefaced.
“That’s the beauty of TikTok. You can really make anything and everything entertaining. It’s about the time to adapt. Sooner or later, everyone will adapt. If you think about it, anything can be fun as long as its safe, as long as it has the consumers and the users in mind of whatever age, I think we can make even industrial glue fun,” Gomez continued.
Although predominantly digital, TikTok says that the Asia Pacific is a distracted region with daily time spend distributed across various digital devices – creating a saturation point for advertising that demands new strategies for customer engagement.
Ultimately, the difference in each country’s local consumer sentiments is expected to have a significant impact to the adoption of Shoppertainment. For example, Indonesian consumers favor live format entertainment with options for real-time interactions while South Koreans prefer celebrity and K-drama content.
“As our creators and marketers level up, so must we. In the coming year, marketers can gear up for even more exciting developments from TikTok and our partners. After an amazing 2022, TikTok is expecting an increase in marketers joining in 2023, which is why TikTok is coming up with new and better ways to support brands and businesses in unleashing their highest potential,” he concluded.
