The Sprout’s 2018 Social Index says that increasing brand awareness is the biggest priority for social marketers, which is understandable as increased brand awareness helps your audience understand, recall, and relate better with your products and branding.
By building brand awareness among your target demographic, you can keep your brand at the top of the consumer’s mind when they research for a purchase. To that end, repetitive and relevant exposure is your greatest weapon when building brand awareness.
Luckily, today there is no dearth of platforms that can help you leave an indelible mark on the consumer’s consciousness.
TikTok is one such platform that has helped brands from various industries boost their familiarity amongst the consumers. By using its features like in-feed ads, TopView, and branded effects, many companies have managed to stay popular and relevant amongst their consumer base.
So, here are three FMCG companies that used TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenge to boost their brand awareness and augment their visibility.
1. Garudafood
Major Indonesian food and beverage manufacturer, Garudafood, wanted to promote its Chocolatos Drink through the TikTok Hashtag Challenge. In doing so, it sought to drive higher engagement than its previous TikTok campaigns and other Hashtag Challenges that it had undertaken before.
Their Objectives
By promoting its Chocolatos Drink via TikTok’s Hashtag Challenge, Garudafood wanted to reach millennials and Gen Z users who were naturally inclined to demonstrate their creativity on TikTok. By doing so, they wanted to tap on to the young TikTok users and boost their brand familiarity amongst them.
Approach & Solution
Garudafood launched its #ChocolatosBikinRelax Hashtag Challenge, which was aimed at driving awareness to the campaign through a combination of ad placements on TikTok, targeting users in Indonesia. The campaign used a combination of high-impact TopView and Brand Takeover ads, which were seen by the users upon opening the app. Also, there were In-Feed ads in the ‘For You’ feeds.
Also, they used the TikTok Branded Effect to take the campaign a notch higher than the previous Hashtag Challenges. This allowed the participants of the Hashtag Challenge to show their support, either for a cold Italian Chocolate Chocolatos Drink with a thumbs-up gesture or for a hot Matcha Latte Chocolatos Drink with an ‘OK’ gesture- while dancing to the branded tune. The Brand Effect would trigger an animation after the gesture was made, indicating the participant’s support for one of the two flavours.
The Result
The #ChocolatosBikinRelax Hashtag Challenge was highly successful and drove a high engagement for the brand with over 115M ad impressions and 13M clicks on Garudafood’s TopView, In-Feed, and Brand Takeover ads. Also, the 30,000 #ChocolatosBikinRelax Hashtag Challenge videos that were submitted were viewed 60M times and fetched the highest rates of engagement for any Hashtag Challenge that Garudafood had run so far.
2. NutriAsia
Popular sauce and condiment producing Philippine food company, NutriAsia, wanted to reinvigorate its condiment brand, Silver Swan, and reinforce the trust that Filipino households had in the 78-year old brand.
Their Objectives
NutriAsia wanted to leverage TikTok to boost its brand affinity and engagement with the younger and more diverse audience through the TikTok Hashtag Challenge campaign.
Approach & Solution
NutriAsia began by launching a Silver Swan account on TikTok and drove awareness, engagement, and followers to the new account through the Branded Hashtag Challenge, which had users participate in creative dances and stir the pot by following Silver Swan’s branded music.
NutriAsia brought on board several key influencers to launch its #SwanderfulMoves Hashtag Challenge campaign on TikTok and used a catchy tune that was hard to get out of one’s head, for the same. The tune was instrumental in making the campaign viral amongst the young TikTokers.
Also, they created a dedicated Challenge Page for the Silver Brand and reserved a feature spot for the #SwanderfulMoves campaign's branded music within TikTok’s Music Page, to ensure the campaign’s success.
Brand Takeover ads greeted the users when they opened the app, and In-Feed ads were smartly placed within ‘For You’ video feed. This ensured that more and more people came to know of the Hashtag Challenge in the Philippines, thereby driving users to click through and participate in the #SwanderfulMoves Hashtag Challenge.
The Result
The campaign was a hit right from the first day and saw the followers on Silver Swan’s TikTok account shot up from zero to 112.4K. Of these, 14K users participated in the challenge and sent videos for #SwanderfulMoves Hashtag Challenge, which reached almost 132M people through Hashtag Challenge and Brand Takeover. This accounted for 22M views on the video. A whopping 4.7M of these views and 323K of the total engagement came from the Official Music Page.
The engagement brought about by the #SwanderfulMoves Hashtag Challenge from the users can be gauged from the fact that an overwhelming majority of the videos featured one or two Silver Swan condiment props. TikTokers were so fascinated by a condiment brand that they collectively created almost 18K videos, with them dancing to the Silver Swan’s branded tune, using soy sauce bottles as props.
3. Fami
Vietnamese soy milk brand, Fami, wanted to capitalize the strong familial ties amongst the Vietnamese households and portray itself as a brand preferred by families.
Their Objectives
Fami sought to boost its brand awareness with TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenge, with families central to its target audience.
Approach & Solution
Fami used a fun and catchy song to go along with its simple dance move that was to be paired with kitchen utensils and other regular household items. It used the hashtag #NhaLaNoi, which translates to “Home is the Place” in English.
Also, its branded song "Nha La Noi Ai Cung Ghien", which means "Home is the place we are addicted to", instantly struck a chord with Vietnamese families, who were its target audience. The campaign also led to other creative submissions like duets with influencers and family photo collage, apart from dancing.
The incorporation of In-Feed and Brand Takeover ads gave Fami the initial burst of awareness. Moreover, TikTok Discovery Page further featured a banner for the #NhaLaNoi challenge and a featured spot within the trending hashtag list, reinforcing its Hashtag Challenge.
The Result
Fami’s Hashtag Challenge was a tremendous success, leading to over 38.9K video submissions, which garnered a whopping 173M views. This gave a significant boost to Fami’s brand awareness and gave families an excuse to come together on Vietnamese Family Day.
So, Are You Ready For Your Branded Hashtag Challenge?
While TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenges are amongst the most effective ways to boost conversions, leads, and overall sales, they have mostly benefited bigger companies that can invest heavily in the campaign. If you are a small business owner, make sure that you fully understand your target audience before going for the Hashtag Challenge.
Don’t go for multiple influencers; stick to one or two, who you think can sway the audience’s perception. If done right, you can reach a wide audience quickly and possibly cheaper than you purely through ads.
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