Welcome to the seventh edition of 🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok - a weekly analysis of trending topics and sounds on TikTok, new feature announcements, the latest in Gen Z lingo, and brand case studies. This week, we discuss concept memes, meme expiration dates, new catchy songs, ASOS’s smart influencer creative, and McDonald’s almost-successful campaign that flopped.

👋 Check out this post to learn more about my newsletter!

💖 If you’re interested in marketing, TikTok, or Gen Z behavior, feel free to connect with me here.

👀 Reading my newsletter for the first time? Subscribe below and check out my recent writing.

Subscribe now

Top TikTok Trends

📱 I’m giving the phone to ➡️

One phone, many personalities. This is a new trending meme format for group settings - we haven’t seen that many TikTok trends including a large group of people due to COVID restrictions (the Mannequin challenge probably wouldn’t fly in March 2021), One group meme you probably remember is the #MostDrunkChallenge, where friends dress up in different costumes/characters and take turns claiming whoever is going to get the drunkest that night. This new trend, “I’m giving the phone to,” features alternating users who describe and roast the next person they’re giving the phone to. The video usually shows a group of 6+ members who have unique, quirky personality traits. We’ve started to see niche communities adopt the trend like this funny cat video version!

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

The “punchline” in these jokes is distributed throughout the video, which prompts users to watch more of the video and point out their favorite parts of the video/roasts in the comments.

These types of memes are called “concept memes,” and are different from your typical TikTok #challenges (think dance challenges) or filter-based trends (think Disney filters). Concept memes demonstrate a novel concept that can be replicated by others who wish to remix the meme. One example is the “Comeback but make it dramatic” meme I wrote about last week. The rate at which a concept meme spreads is dependent on the difficulty of the format, aka the ease of “meme-ability.” A meme that is too easily replicable (like the 2 truths and a lie trend) expires fairly quickly. You see too many of them, and they’re too obvious, resulting in feed fatigue. A meme that is too difficult to replicate will limit exposure and reduce the rate that it spreads because it takes too much time to recreate, or requires more elite creative thinking. To get a meme to spread, you must expose people to versions of the meme that require easy-to-medium-level difficulty to replicate. Humans are naturally good at detecting patterns in what they see, so prior exposure sets up a familiar structure and helps them process new remixes of the meme.

Application for brands: This is a very engaging format since it “breaks the 4th wall” (I mention this TikTok format in a previous article here). Brands offering a variety of products can anthropomorphize and assign personalities to them.

Example: For a women’s wellness and personal care brand like Love Wellness, you can give each of their supplement products a sassy personality, and have them “describe” the next product related to its function. For #Mood Pills -> “I’m giving the phone to someone who’s low key a Scorpio.” For Bye Bye Bloat -> “I’m giving the phone to someone who’ll eat an entire pizza and 2 tubs of ice cream and complain about her stomach problems.”

🌚🌝 Opposites attract

We’ve seen a lot of contrasting personality-type trends show up on TikTok lately. Last week, there was the popular 1 + 2 = My head is a screw trend. This video is similar but is divided into two parts instead of three. Part 1 shows the first character with a personality trait. Part 2 shows the second character with a trait completely opposite to the first, but somehow complementing it. (e.g. Shy friend with social anxiety + friend who bullies everyone at school).

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

Application for brands: Brands that have disparate audiences can tap into defined user personas that appear to be opposites, but actually complement each other.

Example: For an electrolyte rehydration brand like Pedialyte, you can do Part 1 as the hungover millennial mom/dad and Part 2 as their baby with bowel issues.

Top sounds of the week

Chug jug with you - a kid made remixed American Boy with lyrics about Fortnite. It’s surprisingly catchy…

Tokyo (Slowed version) - another version of Leat’eq’s Tokyo, made popular by gaming/streaming TikTok.

Telepatía by Kali Uchis - Kali made this song about spiritually being with someone you can’t… and we’re obsessed.

New features and effects

📸 Album Cover Effect

After witnessing the viral album cover trend, TikTok has officially rolled out an effect that takes photographs when recording and turns them into album covers.

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

👯‍♂️ Twins Filter

Here’s a new filter adapted from the popular inversion filter, where you can see two versions of yourself.

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

Trending Lingo

Top Expressions of the Week

Here are some of my favorite new expressions of the week!

1️⃣ “Pick me” girl

Definition: A girl who seeks validation by indirectly or directly insinuating that she is “not like the other girls” as a result of internalized misogyny. She will often put others down as a result of her own insecurity and begs to be “picked” by subverting traditionally constructed femininity to impress men.

TikTok sound for this expression

2️⃣ Big brain energy

Definition: The confidence you get when exerting a lot of brain energy to solve simple problems. Typically used in sarcastic settings where the answer is obvious.

🔥 HOT 🔥 Brand Case Study: ASOS

This is a recent campaign from ASOS that received over 68M views and 281K engagements.

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

The ad was received positively, with many comments referencing certain elements of the ad (especially the sound) and not too many “POV” style comments. (I’ve previously discussed that having too many POV comments like “POV you just opened the app” or “POV you’re watching this in class” can be an indicator of a poor performing ad).

What did ASOS do well in this ad? Let’s break it down:

ASOS partnered with TikTok dog influencer @tikatheiggy to produce a custom sound for the ad. Tika’s “voice” is instantly recognizable since her sounds have been remixed in countless memes and fashion videos. This helped target ASOS’s fashion audience and provide a more UGC-feel for the ad.
The ad used dynamic visuals and wardrobe transitions which made it feel more lively and fun.
Branding was introduced in the first 3 seconds along with ASOS’s hero influencer, Nava Rose.
The call to action “Get 20% off with code: FASHUNWEEK” was listed both in the copy and in the visual asset.

😐 MEH 😐 Brand Case Study: McDonald’s

We’re trading our 💩NOT💩section for something new this week: 😐 MEH 😐 campaigns aka campaigns that almost got it right, but ended up being a complete miss. This is a recent campaign from McDonald’s that received over 135.7M views and 810K engagements.

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok @hotontiktok

Now, you might think that this ad wasn’t that bad. McDonald’s did use the popular TikTok duet feature, which is uncommon in most ads and should have given off a more UGC feel. So... why was the feedback in the comments generally negative?

To leverage a popular TikTok format like the duet feature, you must first understand its main use cases, specifically, how the feature is most commonly used. Duets are mainly used for reaction videos, conversation pieces, side commentary, or additional visual imagery to the original video, which are all actions that require some level of creativity. On acting and singing TikTok, the duet feature is primarily used as a conversation piece, where you have 2 speakers with different verses. Note that the 2nd speaker typically does not repeat the same verses as the 1st speaker. On language lesson TikTok, this is slightly different, since teachers may ask viewers to repeat after them. However, this isn’t a mainstream use case.

McDonald’s set up their ad so that the 2nd speaker repeated everything the 1st speaker did. There was no conversation or purpose behind the ad. Why would anyone want to duet the ad if they were just repeating the same verses?

What could McDonald’s have done differently?

Leverage a duet format that is more recognizable. As I mentioned above in my breakdown of concept memes, there must be a familiar structure for your audience to reference so that they can process a new remix of the meme.
McDonald’s could use a more conversational script, where the 2nd speaker has to come up with their own responses. This opens up the meme-ability of the video and welcomes more UGC participants.
Also, McDonald’s could have tapped into a previous trend like the advertising #voiceactor challenge and provided a script for users to duet, choosing the best (or most liked) version to become their official TikTok voice actor.

End of story: don’t just apply the duet feature and call the ad an ~original masterpiece~. Get to know the major use cases behind each feature so you know how to best apply them!

That’s all for now, but…

Is there a topic you would be interested in reading about? Or a campaign you’d like me to cover? I’d love to hear your thoughts! You can respond to this email or comment below. 💕

Until next week,

Stephanie

If you enjoyed this issue, hit the like button below and I’ll continue to post similar ones!

Share Stephanie’s Newsletter

Written by Stephanie Jin, a creative strategist, art director, and copywriter based in NYC. Connect with me on Twitter or Instagram.

Stephanie’s Newsletter

🔥Hot🔥 on TikTok 3.5