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برچسب: Advertisers

  • TikTok, Facing a U.S. Ban, Tells Advertisers: We’re Here and Confident

    TikTok, Facing a U.S. Ban, Tells Advertisers: We’re Here and Confident


    “TikTok is here — we are here,” Khartoon Weiss, the company’s vice president of global business solutions, told a packed warehouse of advertisers on Tuesday in Manhattan.

    “We are absolutely confident in our platform and confident in the future of this platform,” she declared.

    That statement was the closest TikTok advertising executives got to addressing the app’s uncertain fate in the United States in the company’s annual spring pitch to marketers. Under a federal law and executive order, the app is set to be banned in the country next month if the Chinese owner of the company, ByteDance, does not sell it.

    Hundreds of representatives from companies like L’Oreal and Unilever and various ad agencies scrambled to find seats for an event hosted by the comedian Hasan Minhaj that heavily emphasized TikTok’s role as a cultural juggernaut.

    TikTok was more than a video platform, Mr. Minhaj told the crowd. TikTok was “the cultural moments you talk about at work, the jokes you talk about in your group chat, the language you use in your everyday life,” he said.

    The tone of the event marked a departure from TikTok’s presentation a year ago, when the company was smarting from the federal law that promised to ban the app in the United States because of national security concerns related to the company’s Chinese ownership. Last year’s pitch started with one of TikTok’s top executives telling roughly 300 attendees that the company would fight the law in court and prevail and was “not backing down.”

    TikTok did not actually win in court — the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law in January — but the company has earned an unusual reprieve from President Trump. He has essentially put a pause on the law, which was set to go into effect in January, most recently giving the company until June to find new owners. On Sunday, he suggested he would extend the reprieve again if ByteDance needed more time.

    The presentation on Tuesday was a reminder that beyond the battles in Washington, TikTok faces the same pressures as any other major social media company — winning ad dollars and promising major brands safe spaces for their messages to run. TikTok has a foothold among marketers hawking everything from clothing to beauty hacks despite competition from Meta’s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the United States.

    At the event, the company promoted new tools that would let marketers run their messages alongside viral trends, and it pitched advertisers on the additional exposure they could get from running ads on TikTok during the Super Bowl. Ms. Weiss also told marketers that the company was eager to develop ways for advertisers to capitalize on search queries, as people increasingly use TikTok as an alternative to popular search engines like Google.

    Krishna Subramanian, chief executive and co-founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8, attended the advertiser presentation and said that the audience had benefited from the reassurance about TikTok’s future.

    “Hearing that TikTok is here to stay from TikTok leadership becomes really powerful, as we think about our strategies for 2025,” he said. “Seeing their investments within generative A.I., within product, within cultural moments — it’s where brands need to be.”

    The event also highlighted some of the turnover that has taken place at TikTok in its past year of turmoil. Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s former president of global business solutions, who kicked off the event in 2024, recently resigned from his role, following the departures of other prominent executives in ad sales.

    Mr. Minhaj’s appearance at TikTok’s presentation marks the start of a star-studded season of pitches from television networks and other tech companies to advertisers. YouTube’s annual advertiser pitch this month will feature a performance from Lady Gaga.

    “Ten years ago, I was just a struggling comedian performing at dive bars, doing the occasional keynote for Vine,” Mr. Minhaj said. “I would have loved to have TikTok when I was starting out as a comic — we have seen comedians build entire careers off of it.”



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  • Spotify Sells Itself to Advertisers as an Alternative to ‘Doom Scrolling’

    Spotify Sells Itself to Advertisers as an Alternative to ‘Doom Scrolling’


    Time passes in funny ways when you’re on your phone.

    Five minutes of swiping on TikTok or tapping through Instagram Stories can slip into 10 minutes, or 20, or one sunken hour. Alex Norstrom, co-president and chief business officer of Spotify, believes some apps will soon “self-swipe,” requiring even less of your effort or awareness.

    His company is moving in a different direction: Using Spotify, he said, “takes commitment.”

    On Wednesday, Spotify laid out its plans to boost its advertising business with several new initiatives to make ad-buying easier, including an A.I. tool for brands in the United States and Canada to generate their scripts and voice-overs.

    But it also made a broader pitch to potential advertisers: Many Spotify users aren’t passively scrolling.

    They’re learning the somewhat fussy technical process of joining a “jam” (listening to music simultaneously with friends), Mr. Norstrom said; or getting to know the host of a podcast who already has 2,000 episodes; or pressing play on a 48-hour audiobook. And a more engaged audience is more likely to engage with ads.

    “It’s more nutritious,” Mr. Norstrom said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, “rather than these high-caloric, quick things.”

    On Wednesday, Lee Brown, global head of advertising, further promoted Spotify to advertisers as an alternative to “rotting and doom scrolling.”

    “People just feel good when they’re on Spotify,” Mr. Brown said in his remarks. “How many apps can say that?”

    Spotify’s emphasis on engaged users came during its first “advance” event — a presentation held for advertisers before the upfronts and NewFronts season, where traditional and online media companies compete for brands’ attention. While most of Spotify’s revenue is generated through subscriptions, its advertising business has been growing more incrementally.

    The goal of media companies during this season is to set themselves apart. Digital media has always been a chaotic landscape, but mounting recession concerns beget even more uncertainty; while TikTok awaits its fate and X becomes a political megaphone, the unexpected rise of video podcasting has propelled YouTube to new heights.

    Spotify enters this season on a stronger footing: 2024 was the first full year of profitability for the company, with a net income of about $1.2 billion and a high of 675 million monthly active users, including 263 million paid subscribers.

    The core focus of the company, founded in 2006 in Stockholm, remains music: You can listen for free with ads, or pay a monthly fee to listen without ads. But Spotify’s expansion into podcasts a decade ago brought new highs and lows, particularly as the advertising market around podcasting wavered.

    Two years ago, the company — long focused on developing new products — turned to improve its bottom line. In 2023, that resulted in three rounds of high-profile layoffs, affecting a reported 2,300 employees, along with a re-evaluation of office space.

    Although Spotify has tried to push into video, its advertisers are still attracted to audio as a “soundtrack,” said Paulie Dery, chief marketing officer at AG1, or Athletic Greens. A ubiquitous supplement advertiser on podcasts, AG1 sells “morning health” products, and wants to capture people during their morning routines, while exercising or commuting.

    As for notching another year of profitability, there have been reports of Spotify’s developing a new subscription tier for music superfans, with better audio quality and access to concert tickets. (Mr. Norstrom said he saw “great potential” in new tiers, but declined to confirm any rollout details.)

    The company is also focused on improving its recommendation algorithm across content types, Mr. Norstrom said — for example, giving users more personalized suggestions for audiobooks based on their favorite music and podcasts.

    The goal is more varied consumption, which inevitably means users who sink more hours into Spotify. But when it’s nutritional, “you tend to come out of it feeling better,” Mr. Norstrom said.



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