While TikTok bans are gaining steam across Western governments, marketers are concerned but not worried about what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say marketers are oblivious to TikTok\u2019s potential risks. But until the red tape becomes much tighter, advertisers will continue to turn a blind eye in favor of an arguably cost-effective platform to reach their target audience. With that said, there\u2019s definitely something different about this latest flashpoint over the geopolitical tensions around TikTok.<\/p>\n
Over the past week alone, three Western governments (the U.S., the EU and Canada) have ordered the app to be removed from federal devices. While some, like the U.K., have said they won\u2019t be following suit, the overall message is clear: more lawmakers around the globe are making bold moves to restrict TikTok over the vaguely articulated concerns about the threat of potential future U.S. data abuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate that some governments have wisely chosen not to implement such bans due to a lack of evidence that there is any such need, but it\u2019s disappointing to see that other government bodies and institutions are banning TikTok on employee devices with no deliberation or evidence,\u201d said a TikTok spokesperson in request for comment.<\/p>\n
The data abuses in question, of course, are fears that the platform\u2019s parent company ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China\u2019s authoritarian government, posing a risk to national security.<\/p>\n
The TikTok spokesperson went on to say the bans were based on \u201cbasic misinformation\u201d and that it was willing to meet with officials to clear the air. \u201cWe share a common goal with governments that are concerned about user privacy, but these bans are misguided and do nothing to further privacy or security,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Despite these assurances from TikTok, there\u2019s been significant <\/strong>government pushback in a very truncated period of time. No wonder it\u2019s caused some eyebrows to be raised in marketing circles.<\/p>\n Marketers are apt to keep their TikTok spend, given the channel\u2019s attractiveness especially to Gen Z users, who have wholeheartly adopted the app as the main space for them to share, connect and build online communities. So much so, agencies have switched up their strategies to become TikTok-first<\/a>, while news publishers<\/a> have created specialist teams<\/a> to tap into the audience.<\/p>\n Hannah Petts, social media director at Dewynters said her agency is already exploring more earned media options to reach Gen Z, and believes others will likely do the same given the latest wave of bans. The rationale of the strategy of reaching people via earned media, or organic content, is rooted in its ability to be less reliant on advertising that could mean sharing data with the app.<\/p>\n In fact, it\u2019s fair to say that the current flashpoint over TikTok has breathed new life into concerns that had been bubbling away for a while.<\/p>\n Some of New Engen\u2019s clients, for example, still refuse to implement TikTok\u2019s tracking pixel over security concerns, said Kevin Goodwin, vp performance marketing at the agency, without naming names. And that was a tactic they\u2019ve continued to employ since the last time Digiday spoke<\/a> with the team last October, as a way to remain somewhat comfortable on the platform.<\/p>\n Despite these concerns, it\u2019s unlikely that advertisers are going to invoke their own ban on TikTok. That would be inconceivable in the current climate given there\u2019s no hard proof that the app is a privacy concern. There is proof, however, that the app is one of the main ways marketers can reach a lot of younger people at the same time. That\u2019s a big thing to give up in any context \u2014 let alone one based on the threat of data abuses in the future, not now.<\/p>\n \u201cMarketers remain unfazed as this is not their first encounter with a social media platform causing concern with privacy issues, and they know it will eventually settle down,\u201d said Rob Jewell, chief growth officer at Power Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n And he has a point. Remember Facebook and Cambridge Analytica? That was probably one of the earliest examples of a flashpoint moment for data privacy and advertising \u2014 yet the social network still managed to walk away fairly unscathed. In fact, its ads business went from strength to strength until relatively recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe lack of meaningful regulation from privacy regulators of much of the online advertising sector has encouraged marketers to avert their gaze,\u201d said Nigel Jones, co-founder of The Privacy Compliance Hub.<\/p>\n For now, it\u2019s a matter of wait and see for many marketers. And they\u2019ve been doing this for some time \u2014 before the Biden administration in fact.<\/p>\n Since former President Donald Trump tried to crack down on the app in 2020, the social platform has been the center of a number of controversial headlines about the concerns around national security risks.<\/p>\n Of course, TikTok has always maintained that the platform isn\u2019t a risk.<\/p>\n In 2020, Project Texas was born as a way to appease U.S. officials about the handling of Americans\u2019 data, with the view that Oracle Cloud would act as a host for TikTok in the U.S. By June 2022, TikTok announced<\/a> that all U.S. user traffic was being routed to Oracle \u2014 with the sub clause that the platform had long stored U.S. user data in its own data centers in the U.S. and Singapore, and those centers would still be used \u201cfor backup.\u201d<\/p>\n TikTok also opened a physical Transparency and Accountability Center, as an open forum for interested parties, for them to learn about how the company\u2019s app and associated algorithms work.<\/p>\n