Big Brands Go Big on TikTok
An assortment of brand creative executions on TikTok - Unilever, Nestle, Sky, Pepsi, and More
Welcome to Good TikTok Creative! We are Simon Andrews and Anthony McGuire, two people who have been working in marketing, advertising, and media for decades. Find Simon and Anthony on Twitter.
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Good TikTok Creative: Big Brands on TikTok
Simon’s Take:
Sometimes you can go days without seeing many ads on TikTok. Often it’s creator collaborations, which they remembered to label. Other than that ads, especially by big brands, still seem quite rare.
But occasionally the algorithm throws up a few proper ads. Over one day I saw ads for Pepsi, Aero, Kit Kat, Sky, Omaze, Aldi and B&Q. This breath of ads demonstrated the variety of approaches.
I think it’s clear big brands are starting to get the hang of TikTok. They’re not all getting it right, but they’re trying. Which is to be commended.
Aero is using TikTok to publicise a good old-fashioned promotion and by using pack shots from the start and throughout tick the boxes on distinctive brand assets - 23k likes is pretty good - though the £10k prize probably helps
Birds Eye also ran a promotion - but no branding. I think there is lots of potential around rethinking sales promotion for TikTok.
KitKat have taken their proper break strategy into TikTok with a civilian (an unidentified actor rather than a influencer) talking through the no nos of breaks - answering emails on a date, drafting them on Sunday and, taking work calls at brunch - and imploring you to take a proper break. But apart from the logo on the first caption, it’s woefully underbranded.
Unilever use an influencer - The squid - with 130k followers - doing a weak comedy sketch where he is so enamoured with adding Hellmans to the sandwich he is making he inadvertently agrees to some task. The pack shot is on screen through the entire ad
B&Q use a civilian to walk around the store advising the outdoor furniture range - talking through product attributes. Lots of product shots but little branding.
Sky work with Callum Ryan - 1.1m followers - to show off their programme range - with a concept around a TV dinner - starter, main and dessert. Little branding but the TV screen is prominent. Is that enough?
We have always been big fans of the way Pepsi use TIKTOK - remember they won the first TikTok Creative awards - helped by stellar talent of Messi but anchored by great branding using the Pepsi can prominently.
They are back with a video that is nothing but the pack shot of the can with the background conveying a party atmosphere. And their latest uses a Flex Walk concpet to get lots of people involved. It’s fun and well branded..
Sky and Aldi also use more conventional TVCs.
Coincidentally (?) some of the most interesting thinking from Cannes centred on how brands can adapt to the new world as well as what the digital world can learn from brand building.
The WARC podcast from Cannes - Brand building in a complex media landscape - gets into the details and McDonald's mention Distinctive brand assets - in their case the Golden Arches.
A CreativeX analysis of the 100,000 creator ads across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (which ran between 2024 and 2025 and represented 800 brands) suggest that the rules of effectiveness need to apply more tightly:
53% of creator ads don’t have a brand mention in the first three seconds
Only 14% of creator ads are watched past the first three seconds
A CreativeX exec points out how Toblerone follow the rules and make it work
The debate moves on with a seminal research study from System1 - THE LONG & THE SHORT (FORM) OF IT. Working with TikTok they have a thorough report full of gems like these;
In skippable media, creativity has become more important. This research clearly shows how shortform ads can stop the scroll and make viewers feel something to create lasting effects for modern brands. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for creative effectiveness. What works depends on who you are and how you show up. This paper reflects that nuance, unpacking how brands of various sizes can gain an edge, along with the pitfalls and powerful potential of creator-led ads. “
In short-form skippable media there’s a brutal reality. To build more branded memories with as many people as possible, integrating brand assets within the first few seconds of an ad remains global creative best practice.
But does that early branding come at a cost to attention? Contrary to popular belief, early branding on digital ads doesn’t automatically lead to declines in attention. Consumers are savvier than ever and expect advertising to include branding as long as it feels natural vs forced
It’s over 50 pages so merits proper attention.
Anthony’s Take:
This week, Simon and I decided to analyze several brands at once. As we survey the landscape of big brands creating content on TikTok, there are a lot of takeaways.
For today, let’s look at how Aero, Birds Eye, KitKat, Hellman’s, B&Q, Sky, and Pepsi used TikTok.
These were all creative executions that tried to be TikTok-native or at least TikTok-first. With the exception of the glossier Pepsi ad that seemed to be a repurposed TVC, all of these brands created content that was low production, emulating UGC content. This content comes across “very TikTok-y” and wouldn’t necessarily be something you expect on another platform like Instagram.
For example, the Aero content feels like a natural UGC influencer posting her own version of a trending meme who just happens to be holding an Aero chocolate bar and casually promoting a competition.
The KitKat content feels like a classic TikTok story told by an influencer and KitKat is inserted naturally. And the Hellman’s ad follows a similar format, an influencer (in his own voice and style) telling a joke and inserting Hellman’s into the punch line.
B&Q feels like an influencer was paid to do a store tour and Sky feels like a UGC-inspired, but more tightly directed piece of content for an influencer family.
The Pepsi content I personally found confusing. Do the “flex walk” on top of a blue carpet in Manchester? I guess it’s cute and fun and doesn’t need to have some deep message, but I don’t see the point of it. For a brand like Pepsi that clearly does not lack awareness, I suppose you could argue (I’m being very charitable here) it associates Pepsi with fun and is a cool experiential activation if you were actually in Manchester.
But going back to all the other brands…!
These brands likely briefed creators—mainly longer tail influencers in this case—to follow a loose set of brand guidelines. ‘Hey, talk about *brand x with y campaign message,* but in your own style.’
However, as per Simon’s point above, can we say how effective these ads were?
I’m going to take a quick detour before trying to answer that question…
I was at Cannes this year and the two hottest topics were AI and the Creator Economy. But it often feels like people pay lip service rather than demonstrate a deep understanding of the topics.
It’s easy to say on a panel, “AI is going to change everything” without following up on specifics of what your company is actually going to do. It’s easy to “work with creators on TikTok” while still being lazy about both your strategy and tactics.
What I see missing from a lot of brands is thoughtful, in-depth creator partnerships and true creative concepts that drive consideration. Advertising is an industry that romanticizes “the big idea” but I worry that very few of those ideas are making their way to TikTok.
As a brand marketer, you should care about this because your audience is on TikTok. There’s whitespace for bigger, bolder creative ideas. It’s ripe for the most ambitious marketers.
Briefing a micro-influencer with generic instructions is not an inspired way to drive results for your brand or your career.
If there’s another message from Cannes worth sharing, it’s that the seismic industry shifts we frequently talk about are coming to a head. New companies are emerging and old companies are declining. Shiny, upstart platforms like TikTok are now mainstream media channels.
So is any of the work we featured this week effective? Well, none of them are going to win a Cannes Lions next year but they demonstrate an incremental evolution in how brands are approaching TikTok.
Simon and I started writing Good TikTok Creative in August, 2020. Nowadays, working with creators to build UGC content is now a common tactic for all brands. TikTok is a major platform to drive results across the marketing funnel.
What’s left now is for brands to tell even grander stories, build even bigger ideas, and work more deeply with creators.
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