Why TikTok and AI dominate digital marketing - An OMR recap

Learning 1: TikTok is coming for everyone!

Anyone who ignores TikTok has lost control of their digital communication. It sounds like a bold statement, but there are good reasons for it.

The TikTok algorithm is the best algorithm there has ever been, according to NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway. Above all, TikTok has one USP: the platform takes the decision of what to consume away from its users. 

We spend 50 minutes a week deciding on a Netflix series or Netflix film. And 150 minutes deciding what we want to eat. Time we essentially waste – and TikTok takes that decision away from us. What more could we want? 

This means the platform competes with far more digital players than just social media platforms. The real competition is much broader and, alongside Facebook, Instagram and co., now also includes Netflix, Spotify, Google and Amazon!

Let's take a look at why:

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TikTok vs. Netflix

We already know that TikTok has won the battle for attention against YouTube. On average, people in Austria consume 31 hours and 31 minutes of TikTok videos per month. By comparison, Austrians spend only 16 hours and 28 minutes on YouTube. 

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Time spent on social media apps. Source: datareportal.com 

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TikTok also dominates when looking at the next generation: children up to 18 years old in the US watch an average of 113 minutes of videos on TikTok compared to 52 minutes on Netflix.

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Source: Scott Galloway, OMR24

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TikTok vs. Spotify 

In February 2024, TikTok launched its “TikTok Music” offering globally. Users can listen in full to the music they hear and love in TikTok videos on TikTok's music streaming platform. In addition, there is also a “For You Page” here that recommends new songs based on users' interests. Users can create shared playlists, like songs and comment on them too.

Source: TikTok Music

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TikTok vs. Google

Google is also being challenged by TikTok. 41% of users have already used TikTok for search queries, and among Gen Z the figure is as high as 64%. TikTok's search function has been greatly expanded by the platform over recent months – even the iPhone widgets look virtually identical:

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Source: Digiknall

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Google naturally remains the leader in its role as a search engine. Nevertheless, TikTok’s growth is remarkable and relevant for everyone involved in social media marketing. 

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TikTok vs. Amazon

TikTok launched TikTok Shop in autumn 2023, creating the opportunity to shop directly in the app. The platform aims to bring the shopping experience into its own ecosystem, thereby taking traffic and revenue away from other marketplaces.

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Source: TikTok Shop

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Recommended keynote by Scott Galloway: WATCH ON YOUTUBE 

Recommended keynote by Philipp Westermeyer and Roland Eisenberger: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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Learning 2: All eyes on WhatsApp!

There are currently 2 billion people using WhatsApp worldwide. This makes it the third-largest social media platform in the world. It is also the leader in Austria, with 7,4 million users. In addition, it is the country’s most popular social media platform (37,3%).

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WhatsApp is currently a very private space for its users: no advertising and predominantly private chats. But this will change over the coming months, as Meta – which owns WhatsApp – has already announced that it will develop new features for businesses. 

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The platform is particularly attractive for marketing, as 98% of all messages on WhatsApp are opened. WhatsApp newsletters are already being used by some companies, and the social media platform is also already used for customer communication – but it is still not on the radar of many. 

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Source: Scott Galloway, OMR24

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A major boost for WhatsApp is the strong population growth in India, Nigeria and Indonesia. Alongside China and the US, these countries will be among the five most populous countries in the world – with India and its 1,7 billion inhabitants by 2050 taking first place ahead of China. WhatsApp is used intensively in these countries: 77% of India’s population use the app, as do over 90% of people in Nigeria and Indonesia. This usage behaviour is another driver for Meta to place the app at the heart of marketing communications.

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Source: Scott Galloway, OMR24

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If you would like to explore the topic of WhatsApp marketing in more detail, you can read the article by Johannes Mansbart on the subject in our newsroom. A strong tool recommendation from us: https://chatarmin.com/  

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Recommendation for Scott Galloway's keynote: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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Learning 3: Mediocrity is now free!

Social media is flooded with content. Anyone can start a new social media channel and compete for users' attention. 

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ChatGPT and a host of other AI tools for text, images and video make content production easier and create the possibility of producing virtually unlimited content for free. However, there is a downside: all this content is utterly average! (More on this in Learning 6)

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To stand out from the crowd with social media content in 2024, it is important to produce unique content:

• Content is unique when it authentically suits the person or company that publishes this content on its own pages. 
• Content is unique when it captures users' attention in the first 0,4 seconds (trigger) and holds it throughout the entire video (watch time). 
• Content is unique when it contains a distinctive feature that remains consistent across all videos.

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Source: Digiknall

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Recommendation for the panel featuring Umer Butt, Stephanie Butt (Glückspilz) and Baran Besfky (Kalamata): WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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Learning 4: Copies are cheap and useless!

All the major e-commerce brands (the industry's best practices) that share their successes and the paths they took to achieve them are super inspiring. But they cannot be copied!! No one can simply imitate the advertising strategies or adverts of Snocks, Purelei, Waterdrop and co. Too much inspiration is not healthy either. 

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The successes of these brands and their paths to get there are unique paths, taken at the right times in the past with the right measures. 

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Therefore: don't waste time on others; use it yourselves to better understand your own target group, make them an irresistible offer and implement the whole thing creatively within today's rules. Companies and NGOs must dare to find their own path to success, which requires the necessary time and investment. There has never been a shortcut to success, and there never will be! (unfortunately)

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Recommendation for the keynote by Nina Julie Lepique from femtasy: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Recommendation for the “State of DTC” keynote with SuperStreusel, Waterdrop and Stapelstein: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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Learning 5: Don't be afraid of artificial intelligence. 

Germany is still debating fax machines, while Joe Biden is having a Chief AI Officer appointed in every US agency. 

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Source: Sascha Lobo, OMR24

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Don't let fear rule your companies and NGOs; instead, approach the subject of artificial intelligence openly and positively. It is in the process of changing everything, and we probably cannot yet imagine where this exciting and thrilling journey will lead. Sascha Lobo made an important appeal at OMR: “The bad sides of AI come by themselves – we have to work intensively together for the good ones."

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Recommendation for Sascha Lobo's keynote: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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Learning 6: The 4 C’s of AI in marketing. 

If we are not meant to be afraid now, what defines Artificial Intelligence in 2024? In his part of the “State of the German Internet” keynote, Roland Eisenberger defined the 4 C’s of Artificial Intelligence: Content, Cost-Efficiency, Concern and Customer.

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Content

The following applies to AI content: “Mediocrity is now free!”, said Nick Law of Accenture Song. Roland Eisenberger illustrated the issue even more vividly: AI output is often adopted and published word for word. And the result is as follows:

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Source: amazon.de

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While in this example we can see at first glance that these are ChatGPT-generated texts, this may not be so clear with many other texts, photos and videos. Average AI content has flooded the internet, and smart companies and NGOs stand out from the average! 

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Our view:

We believe that Artificial Intelligence will significantly change the content sector. But do not rely too heavily on the output, otherwise you will sink into obscurity. Use Artificial Intelligence as a sparring partner. Use it to generate and multiply ideas. But remember: create unique content! (More on this in Learning 3)

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Cost-Efficiency

“You will not be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, but by a person who uses Artificial Intelligence.” Who has not heard this sentence before? Roland Eisenberger also used it to introduce the “second C”. The hot tip: learn how to use Artificial Intelligence properly! 

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A practical example from OMR: how to evaluate the target group's pain points with ChatGPT within seconds and thus send the right messages in ads:

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If you have reviews or ratings from your customers on Amazon, Google or other platforms, you can download them and upload the dataset to a CustomGPT (a customised version of ChatGPT for a specific topic). Using this CustomGPT, you can use simple queries to find out how your customers talk about you, what pain points they have, and then address these specifically in advertisements. Smart, right?

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Our view:

We believe that Artificial Intelligence can massively increase efficiency in digital marketing. To do this, we must always ask ourselves which processes or tasks in everyday working life can be optimised – and which parts of them Artificial Intelligence can take over for us. In any case, we can only recommend CustomGPTs from OpenAI – try them if you have not already done so!

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Concern

Have you ever considered that ChatGPT can tap into your website? What if a competing company simply copied your website and published it under their branding? 

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Roland Eisenberger showed us such an example: Jake Ward did this with his company Causal by using ChatGPT to decipher the sitemap of his competitor ExcelJet and simply copy it. This enabled him to drive 3,6 million clicks to his site.

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Source: Twitter (X), Jake Ward on 24.11.2023

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After posting this cheeky tweet, however, Google stepped in and penalised the website. The fact that this is possible may seem very frightening at first glance.

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Our view:

We believe it is important not to let these concerns take over. Don’t be afraid of artificial intelligence – engage with it! However, we totally agree that you should handle your data with care! Being mindful is always appropriate ;)

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Customer

33% of people have already used AI tools to search for products, according to a survey by Appinio. Andy Wilson, CEO of Logikcull – a legal discovery software company – says that ChatGPT could generate 100.000 euros in revenue for his company, thanks to recommendations from the tool. 

But how do you rank on ChatGPT? We were given an insight into ChatGPT’s training data: 82% of the data is based on public content from the internet, 13% on digital books, 1% on Wikipedia and 4% on Reddit! 

Source: Roland Eisenberger, OMR24

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Reddit is an online forum where people can exchange views on various topics. And OpenAI considered the platform so important that not only is 4% of the training data based on it, but this 4% is weighted at a total of 20% in the output! So, when it comes to influencing ChatGPT’s output, Reddit is the best platform for doing so.

Our view:

How the topic of AI ranking will develop is still difficult for us to say. But we will be watching the topic with great interest. Above all, what we take away from this point is the use of Reddit to find out how people talk about products, brands and topics. A good source for communicating in a more target-group-oriented way in marketing.

Recommendation for the keynote by Philipp Westermeyer and Roland Eisenberger: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Recommendation for the keynote by Philipp Klöckner: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Learning 7: Measuring digital political campaigns. 

The way campaigns in the public sector are measured is miles behind the hard-nosed e-commerce business, where every penny really counts. At the same time, it has never been so important to engage in political communication on social media. 

“Democracy is in danger,” said Robert Habeck live on the main stage at OMR. Christian Lindner and many other well-known figures from the public sphere said the same. Digital communication, deepfakes, artificial intelligence and social media are endangering democracy, especially when evil forces such as the AfD use them for their own ends. It is about not complaining about politics, but being active yourself. 

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But how do you make it measurable? We recommend developing your own ROI – a Return on Impact. The aim is to define how the digital political campaign can really be measured, instead of merely dealing with blunt reach and engagement figures. Get ready for the battle for democracy in Europe!

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Recommendation for the talk by Robert Habeck WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Recommendation for the talk by Christian Lindner: WATCH ON YOUTUBE

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