TikTok may or may not be banned in the U.S. in early 2025. For now, though, it’s business as usual — and the popular video app has a new pitch for Hollywood marketers seeking to reach TikTok’s avid user base of more than 1 billion.
The main entry point for TikTok is the For You feed, the algorithmically generated discovery hub that displays video clips that an individual user is most likely to engage with. There hasn’t been a reliable way for entertainment marketers to tap into this “unique ecosystem,” according to TikTok — until now. This week, the app is widely launching TikTok Spotlight, a new promotional solution that lets movie studios, networks and streamers piggyback on content in the For You feed that’s related to a specific title or franchise.
How it works: TikTok Spotlight identifies applicable videos on the platform (using machine learning as well as human reviewers) and attributes an anchor link to the marketer who’s purchased a campaign through the program. The link directs users to a dedicated landing page where they can discover more details like synopsis, cast, official accounts, and a collection of other creator content linked to the same title. From the landing page, marketers also can link out to a streaming service to let users watch the title immediately; buy or rent the title on a digital storefront; or purchase movie tickets. Marketers can also exclude specific videos (i.e. those that may not be “brand safe”) from Spotlight campaigns.
Warner Bros. has been among the early partners for TikTok Spotlight. Earlier this year, the studio used TikTok Spotlight to promote “Dune 2” with a curated search hub, movie anchor and detail page, and a gamified call-to-action to the creator community to create related TikTok videos to unlock custom Dune profile frames to decorate their avatars.
According to the studio, through the campaign, TikTok became the top driver of traffic to the ticketing hub during the film’s opening weekend in early March and also helped “Dune 2” captured leading “share-of-voice” in promotion markets within TikTok’s entertainment vertical.
Warner Bros. posted 164 clips to “Dune 2’s” TikTok account in the weeks before and after the theatrical debut. In addition, the studio teamed with 90 individual TikTok creators to promote the movie. In the two weeks leading up to and after the movie’s debut, fans created more than 260,000 Dune-related videos, amplifying the posts from the Warner Bros.-owned account.
“TikTok Spotlight has become an invaluable tool in our marketing arsenal,” said Cameron Curtis, EVP of global digital marketing for Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group. Using the feature, he said, “we’ve been able to organically amplify our reach, engage with a diverse audience, and create authentic connections around our films, generating dynamic conversations and user-generated content that elevate the social buzz around our movies.”
What was key, Curtis said, is that the TikTok promotional campaign resulted in authentic content and interactions that felt “personal and engaging, rather than purely commercial.”
TikTok also worked with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max for Spotlight activations for HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and “Game of Thrones.”
According to TikTok, Spotlight works to identify the right creators and corresponding incentives to encourage authentic content around their favorite films and shows. The best TikToks are then amplified across the platform and beyond. TikTok Spotlight includes a dedicated analytics dashboard where marketers monitor a campaign for a given title and identify developing trends in real time.
As James Stafford, TikTok’s global head of publishers, put it: “With TikTok Spotlight, we are harnessing the water-cooler effect, offering a full-service marketing platform that is supercharging our organic ecosystem, driving community and business results for entertainment marketers.”
Currently, TikTok is in the middle of a court challenge to a U.S. law enacted this spring that would ban the app as soon as January 2025 unless Beijing-based ByteDance sells its stake in TikTok. American lawmakers backing the law have cited concerns that TikTok represents a national security threat, arguing the app could give the Chinese government a way to spy on Americans or push pro-China propaganda. TikTok argues that the law violates the First Amendment.
