TikTok, WPP Media, and System1 have joined forces to launch the Creator Effectiveness Playbook to help brands make creator advertising a steadier revenue stream.
TikTok has partnered with WPP Media and System1 to launch the Creator Effectiveness Playbook.
The playbook outlines how the right creator can boost brand memory by four times through creative quality rather than engagement alone.
Follower count is not the deciding factor, it argues, entertaining small creators can reach brand-memory levels of large creators.
The playbook found that brand fit should be a much more important factor than creator fame when it comes to choosing partnerships, as a smaller creator can beat a larger creator if the content has the right feel.
Josh Gornell, vice president of commercial paid social at WPP Media, said: “Creators are no longer a ‘new’ advertising opportunity, and should not be an uncertain investment. Yet, too often, they are.
“That is because beneath the headline statistics around creator impact lies significant performance variability – an exceptional minority is elevating an underperforming majority. For the first time, this playbook codifies creator impact. It provides a robust, validated blueprint to eliminate unpredictability and drive creator effectiveness forward.”
This playbook builds on research from TikTok and System1, which tested over 880 short-form ads within eight global markets, over 92,000 TikTok users, and matched with creative responses to over 350 in-market brand studies.
More than 1,200 paid TikTok ads were analysed, including 620 creator ads – with a combined 23.6 billion impressions.
This report found creator ads could be used to deliver a 23% boost to brand memory (combining memorability and ad recall) than other short-form video ads.
Brand memory is an under-utilised metric, the report argued, with many marketers instead focusing on engagement. Although this can be a good way to measure campaign effectiveness, it has “effectively no relationship with whether brand memory grows”, the report said.
