Issue #82 - Tate Modern & The Arts on TikTok

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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.

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TikTok Case Study #82 = Tate Modern & The Arts on TikTok

Simon’s Take:

The brand count on TikTok is impressive and we also now see new categories of advertiser - like the jobs ads we highlighted with Screwfix and others a few weeks ago.

We now see more and more arts organisations on TikTok. It’s already a natural choice for film promotions and #booktok continues to thrive - closing in on 47bn views.

So the Tate is interesting, running ads for the excellent Lubaina Himid show at Tate Modern. It’s not a big campaign - clocking just 200k views so far -  but it’s lovely; fast cuts of the wide range of work by the artist, set to a nice track from Bruno Mars, Anderson Paak and Grammy winning Silk Sonic. And it’s well targeted - I have seen the ad a number of times and had already seen the show twice. (It’s highly recommended)

There is a lot of potential for the Tate to do better though. There is a get showtimes button on the ad, which links to the site to buy tickets but on the Tate profile there is no link to learn more or buy tickets. They have upped the frequency of posting - now every couple of weeks - but with so much amazing content they could do so much more. To be fair, few museums seems to get TikTok. For example New York’s MoMa have not yet claimed their blue tick and have never posted.

Another art project running TikTok ads is London’s Almeida theatre, promoting their hot new play Daddy - written by Jeremy O Harris, whose last play Slave Play was nominated for a record 12 Tonys. 

It’s a long ad, showing the rehearsals with cast and playwright explaining the story - and the fully functional swimming pool on stage! Having seen the play in preview on Friday the ads capture the essence of the show - and with a link tree make it easy to buy tickets. Again the targeting seems to work well.

Bu there is more for the Almeida to do. Claim the blue tick. Post more organic content. Create a hashtag for the audience to use - although the discourage the audience taking pictures.

Filling TikTok with great art - and great theatre - would seem a good idea in these challenging times . Maybe there is an opportunity for brands to curate this content?

Anthony’s Take:

The Tate Modern seems to be marketing their Lubaina Himid exhibit with TikTok in mind. The video is cut and edited with fast takes and modern video techniques that would fit the attention span of younger people. Whether on TikTok or something like Instagram reels, their creative does a good job of capturing eyeballs. In less than a minute, the Tate gives you a decent idea of what you could expect from visiting the exhibit, all agains the musical backdrop of modern pop/soul/R&B from Silk Sonic.

I would say that this comes as a pleasant surprise from this type of organization, but having written Good TikTok Creative for over a year now, I’m expecting fairly high levels of adoption and understanding from all types of organizations wanting to use TikTok. Though considering their focus on modern art, maybe being on TikTok is much more ‘on-brand’ for the Tate Modern vs. an older art gallery or museum.

Their video makes me want to attend the Lubaina Himid exhibit and clicking onto the Tate Modern’s TikTok profile brings me further down the funnel. They seem to be using their TikTok profile as a channel to repurpose their library of content, which expands the variety of benefits I would associate with the brand. They feature snippets of documentaries, features, and profiles that showcase the human side of the exhibits, rather than focusing on the actual art. In one of the most recent videos, the Tate Modern profiles Guerrilla Girls article collective for International Women’s Day.

Another video highlights the Tate Lates, the fun monthly party they host at the venue featuring DJs, events, and food. This is likely geared towards a younger, more outgoing audience that you are going to find more on TikTok. The video helps promote the event to the right audience. Another video features a campaign the Tate Modern did for Valentine’s Day, and TikTok appears to be an appropriate channel for distributing content for all their tentpole events.

Moving to Almeida Theatre, their TikTok video comes across like a traditional trailer for a theater show. There’s a good interview with the cast, some previews of the actual show, and more content that helps you understand the story behind the show. Another video takes you ‘behind the scenes’ to see some of the photography created for promotional reels. It’s shot and edited well for TikTok.

The main thing here is again showcasing the human side of the show - the actors and what motivates them, an unedited behind the scenes version of how the film crew has come together to build something. These are things that allow people to connect more deeply.

Whether it’s the Tate Modern, Almeida Theater, getting more personal with your content on TikTok works. And whether you’re an arts organization, an e-commerce brand, or a B2B professional services company, the TikTok playbook of striving for more authenticity and storytelling will be your best strategy in almost every scenario.

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