Agencies and marketers point to TikTok in the running to win ‘first real social Olympics’

This year’s Paris Olympics won’t just be a stage for athletic endeavors — they’re a milestone in sports advertising.

Perhaps the biggest change, alongside the introduction of streaming platforms and programmatic ad buying around the Games, is a platform the U.S. Congress voted to ban just a few months ago. TikTok’s hold on younger audiences, the possibility of integrating e-commerce elements into media plans — and the shifting fortunes of platforms like X, previously an important arena for sports-adjacent marketing — are persuading advertisers to devote more of their media budgets to the short-form video platform.

Robert Anderson, group head of social media marketing for British retail bank NatWest, told Digiday he believes the Paris Games will be “the first real social Olympics.” Although he didn’t divulge how much NatWest will be spending, Anderson said that alongside TV, outdoor and influencer activity NatWest plans a “significant” flurry of activity on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

“If you’re going to support Team GB, you’ve got to go big,” he added. “You’ve got to go all in.”

Anderson isn’t alone in that estimation. GroupM’s latest mid-year forecast estimates that advertiser spending on paid social channels will grow 9.9% to $342.9 billion in 2024. Plenty of that will find its way to Meta or Snap, but the proportion following to TikTok is rising. 67% of B2C marketers in the U.S. said their organization plans to increase their investment in TikTok this year, according to Forrester’s 2024 Marketing Survey.

Samsung, which is a worldwide sponsor of the Games, launched a campaign today (July 26th) centering around a bespoke TikTok filter. Jay Phillips, a creative director at Samsung’s agency BBH London, told Digiday that although the campaign’s budget would be spread on Facebook, Instagram and X, the “majority” was intended for TikTok. 

Phillips, who did not share Samsung’s media budget, said that “It was a no brainer” for Samsung’s campaign, which is directed at younger Gen Z consumers.

Payment company Visa, another worldwide sponsor of the Games, has several campaigns running around the Olympics. Mary Ann Reilly, CMO, Visa, didn’t share a breakdown of its media budget, but previously told Digiday that TikTok was set to be a major component of its approach while trying to attract a younger audience.

Mostly, marketing and agency execs say that this is a response to changing viewing habits — a response that predates the Paris Olympics, and that began with TikTok’s rise to generational popularity during the Covid pandemic.

Amy Luca, evp, global head of social at Monks (formerly Media.Monks, as of last week), said: “Gen Z is getting all their news through highlights and clips, they’re getting all their sports content through highlights and clips, they’re getting their entertainment content through highlights and clips.”

“Unless you’re super passionate about an Olympic sport, you’re not going to watch it on TV or streaming and pay for it,” she added. “You’re just gonna wait for the highlights on TikTok.”

Phillips agreed. Samsung’s campaign strategy was constructed with younger consumers‘ viewing habits in mind, he said: “We’re trying connect with a Gen Z audience with the campaign, because Gen Z, they don’t really care about the Olympics that much.”

Harley O’Dell, U.K. content partnerships lead, global business marketing, TikTok, said the platform was “already seeing a surge of interest in the games” among users, but declined to share specific figures, or say if it had recorded an increase in ad revenue in the week running up to the Games’ opening ceremony.

Compared even with the last edition of the summer Games, held in Tokyo in 2021, advertisers are operating within “a massively changing media landscape in sports, with content creators, social platforms, and streaming products leading the way,” said Dan Conti, head of sports marketing at media agency PMG.

Alongside the introduction of streaming inventory and programmatic TV buying on Olympics coverage, Paris marks the first summer Olympic Games that TikTok has been present at as a major advertising force. In 2021, for example, social media agency Thyga put aside precisely $0 against the platform. Years later, managing director Charles Ruyant said, it typically took up one third of client media budgets.

“People understand they need to be there,” he said.

If spend is drifting toward TikTok in search of a younger audience, it’s been drifting away from X — seen by many marketers as a destination for live sporting events — for some time. Though typically a minor element of most marketers’ media plans prior to Elon Musk’s takeover, many brands, such as NatWest, now steer clear entirely.

“Four years ago, the conversation was there and X was part of the spend,” said Ruyant. “Now, X is not even being considered.”

At Stagwell media agency Assembly, managing director and head of media Nicole Jennings said that “X has fallen to being mainly an organic channel.”

(X had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication; an email auto-reply said “Busy now, please check back later.”).

The same viewing habits leading advertisers toward TikTok will also bring them to Instagram Reels and YouTube, and Meta platforms are a feature on the media plans of every marketer spoken to for this article. “Meta remains critical as a foundation,” said Jennings.

One element that might tip further spend toward TikTok, though, is marketers’ growing confidence in its e-commerce capabilities. “TikTok’s Shop represents a massively improved customer experience compared to previous social shopping experiences, which contained many roadblocks, like out of sync inventory feeds, unclear return policies and an inconsistent experience,” said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

“It’s showing itself as a great place for brands to gain full funnel engagement with consumers,” she added.

Sport-adjacent brands are making use of TikTok Shop in conjunction with their paid spend. According to data provided by TikTok, Puma revenues on the Shop rose 737% after running ads that led users to their products on the platform (it didn’t share a dollar amount, or what level sales had risen from).

At Assembly, Jennings said the agency’s clients had found the opportunity to incorporate e-commerce functions into their campaign useful in general, and not just during the sporting summer.

“The full funnel capabilities at this point on TikTok are really working,” she said. “We have a lot of performance focused clients, we can execute full funnel campaigns across TikTok and make them work in a performance environment.”

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