take my money, TikTok
the rise of retailtainment
You are cordially invited to this week’s brew of High Tea, your dispatch of 🔥 internet culture served piping hot. This week: Snapchat walked so that TikTok could run, bless me thru the phone and Billie Eilish bounces back.
Drink up. 🐸☕️
what we’ve been sipping on
This week TikTok sneakily rolled out its newest shoppable videos feature, in one of the first (of many) moves to level up to the social ubiquity of the Facebook group. We have a feeling it’s only just the beginning... 🐸☕️
Social commerce is no fresh kid off the block; ‘link in bio’ has evolved into the millennial war cry of sorts, but now it’s expanding to accommodate the digital acceleration of disposable income. Snapchat’s latest report highlights how millennials and Zs (with a combined direct spending power of $1 Trillion) are turning to their phones for every touch point on the path to purchase.
Gen Z use Snap to consult friends and family for purchase advice and are twice as likely to share a moment about their purchase than non-snapchatters: 45% tag or mention a brand after purchasing a product. Snap’s sentiment of authenticity - with its focus on ephemeral content between friends - has successfully translated to its in-app shopping features. The results speak for themselves:
We think TikTok’s new shopping cart feature will disrupt these numbers even more. Here’s why:
let me(mes) retailtain you
TikTok is not like other social apps (let’s erase its comparison to Instagram’s Explore Tab from memory 🙃); forget voice notes or flatlays of your avocado toast, TikTok represents a new wave of social entertainment. Not to mention that it reached 1bn users faster than any other social media app. Have we got your attention now? Good.
Blessing us with “Kombucha Girl”, the birth of an entire scrunchie-loving subculture and boomers lipsyncing to Lizzo, TikTok filled that short-form content shaped hole - left behind by Vine after its closure in 2016 (RIP). Oh, and let’s not forget Jiff, the skateboarding Pomeranian who does handstands. Yes, handstands.
Unlike other platforms, scrolling on TikTok is dynamic in its timelessness, pardon the pun, and discovering new content is built into the user experience. Users feel part of the in-app community without having to upload any content, something alien to the likes of Instagram and Facebook. As Kanye said, “I was looking at the ‘Gram and I don’t even like likes”.
Membership on TikTok, separate to SoMe’s big players, is earned by means of consumption. Its commodification feels like an extension of its community, ‘Keeping Up With The Joneses’ rather than a hashtag spon. Add a shopping cart into the mix, note: not a promoted ad...yet, and you have a perfect ‘link’ from discovery to purchase: users are enthralled by the newly discovered content, wish to support the creator and subsequently buy their wares in just a few taps. Online retailtainment is born.
With TikTok’s shopping cart only available to selected influencers in its beta, we’ve got our fingers crossed that this new feature will be rolled out across the entire user base over time - especially to help their top creators generate revenue and monetise their content in a way that remains authentic to their brand.
We think the future of retail is video entertainment, community and discovery, making TikTok easily the top platform for shopping online.
A word of warning to big brands: pls no heavy-handed intrusions 🙏 TikTok’s new shopping feature is not just another use-and-abuse for stagnant social copy signed off by the CMO - TikTok demands experimental marketing. Content is your make or break when it comes to getting bang for your buck. Success comes when brands place creativity and fun at the heart of every TikTok campaign. Schedule that 9am creative huddle, you’ll need it.
kettle’s on: ones to watch
White noise. And we’re not talking about that 2013 banger by Disclosure and AlunaGeorge (remember them?!). Turn out that White Noise (once commodified) is big busine$$. There are now a plethora of apps and products that offer audio alternative in our ever polluted world (yes, noise pollution *is* a real thing). Don’t miss this hot take from Quartz on what could turn into the next public health crisis.
Tell em das me. We’ve been Brooke Candy stans since she was bopping about in the background of Grimes’ Genesis, lowkey putting the tin man to shame. We’ve followed her metamorphosis throughout the years as she continues to defy genre and craft her artistry. Peep Wang Me Over, Alexander Wang’s new series on the people that inspire him the most, for a deep dive into the subversive rapper and performer herself.
Billie’s back. The ethereal Billie Eilish has followed up from her groundbreaking debut, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, (aka the third most-streamed album on-demand in 2019) with her latest release - a lullaby to the misgivings of global fame and dedication to brother and longtime collaborator, FINNEAS. For the record, Billie retains the title for the first only artist born in the 2000s to record a #1 in the US. You should see her in a crown...
Angelfish. It’s a good week to be Princess Nokia. Making her screen debut this week (premiered in nyc, where else?) Angelfish sees Destiny Frasqueri play a lovelorn daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, set against an early ‘90s Bronx. Full of “woozy summer-in-the-city atmospherics”, it’s one to keep your eyes peeled for when it lands on-demand from the 19th. If that wasn’t enough, she also dropped the video for Balenciaga. Radiating some serious TOMBOY energy, catch us yelling “thrift clothes looking like Prada” asap.
Blessings on blessings. Who said long-distance is still a thing? This week a tweet showing Pope Francis blessing a photo of a baby through a Samsung had us in awe. A move that shows religion may be God-fearing, but smartphones get a hall pass.
Okay, you made it. Now you can go back to being hungover.
ttyl, High Tea.