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“Quitting” videos are currently en vogue on TikTok. Soon, TikTok itself could be the one packing up and saying goodbye.
Last week, the Biden administration demanded that TikTok’s Chinese parent company sell its stake in the app or face a potential ban over national security concerns. What exactly a ban might look like in the US isn’t exactly clear. What is clear is that a lot of marketers and influencers would feel the impact.
- According to The Information, some brands have reacted to talk of a potential ban by “refraining from boosting spending” on the app. “While marketers are mostly taking a wait-and-see attitude about spending on TikTok, ad executives say, they are telling ad agencies they want to have a strategy ready in case a ban occurs.”
- Meanwhile, some creators are thinking about what a world without TikTok might look like. Shay Regis, an influencer who does the majority of her brand deals on the app, “sat down with her husband over the past week to discuss their finances in various scenarios without TikTok,” per the Wall Street Journal.
- For its part, TikTok has been meeting with leaders in the ad industry as of late to “essentially convince them the platform is not going to be banned,” an agency exec told Ad Age.
Big picture: TikTok has quickly become a key platform for marketers; earlier this year, Mekanism’s chief innovation officer told Digiday that it “makes up about 25% of the social ad budgets.” Insider Intelligence estimated that the app would bring in nearly $10 billion in ad revenue last year, more than double the year prior. And that’s not to mention organic marketing on TikTok, where small businesses in particular have found success.
Still, some agencies and brands have expressed concerns over the use of TikTok’s pixel, which advertisers can install on their sites to track some of their users’ online behavior.
Coming up: On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before Congress, where he plans to share that the app has 150 million active users in the US, per NBC News.—MS