Major companies looking for ad opportunities seem to be likely to stick with the vibrant new platform known as TikTok in order to reach young audiences, even though the United States government seems keen on banning American use of the application.
For months now, we’ve been reporting on the U.S. administration’s effort to usher in a TikTok ban based on concerns that the Chinese could potentially spy on Americans through the platform.
It’s not clear how that would work, or specifically why U.S. officials are calling for the platform ban, and the extreme nature of the action echoes the kinds of capricious tariff activity instituted over the last couple of years, which seemed, to some, mainly a way to publicly punish the Chinese government for past sins.
Now, companies like Procter & Gamble and Chipotle say they are sticking with their TikTok ad campaigns right up until the day the U.S. government enforces a ban
“While TikTok’s advertising business is young, it has attracted big names that aim to reach the millions of teenagers who use the app for dance challenges, makeup tutorials and lipsyncing videos,” write Martinne Geller and Richa Naidu at Reuters.
TikTok has given firms the opportunity to pull campaigns, but some companies are even embarking on new TikTok ad buys now, even after a deal to force a sale to U.S. interests has been pushed down the road.
France’s Danone last week announced a new TikTok campaign for its Oikos Triple Zero yogurt,” Geller and Naidu write, quoting Danone’s U.S. marketing head Linda Bethea as saying that “it’s all about being where our consumers are and making sure we are executing our campaigns in a safe way.”
There’s also some interesting corporate activity related to TikTok espionage and censorship concerns. For instance, Wells Fargo has prohibited employees from having the TikTok app on their smartphones, raising constitutional concerns. Amazon, for its part, has not, although a an email sent asking employees to remove the app from their phones is said to have been sent by mistake.
“In an email obtained by The New York Times, Amazon had notified workers that ‘due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email.’” reported Louise Matakis at Wired July 10. “The message said employees must delete the app by Friday but noted they could continue to access TikTok from their laptop browsers. After this story was published, however, Amazon sent a statement saying, ‘This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error. There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.’”
Those looking into the story ask whether the proposed ban is about something other than rote cybersecurity vigilance.
“TikTok’s fiercest opponents argue that it should be viewed as a dangerous Trojan horse for Chinese Communist Party espionage,” Matsakis wrote, following up July 17. “On the other side are those who frame that criticism as merely thinly-veiled xenophobia, a result of rising racism toward Chinese people and deteriorating relations between the US and Beijing. In between are plenty of people who aren’t quite sure what to believe. So far, like with Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky a few years before, US officials have provided little evidence for their claims about TikTok aside from pointing to its country of origin.”
That about sums it up. Keep an eye on TikTok, WeChat, Huawei, and related businesses in a chaotic Sino-U.S. ecosystem.