TikTok used this cast-image of animated “Sing 2” to promote a song contest for the Universal release.
Short-videos web site TikTok is becoming a primo Hollywood movie promotion partner with Sony Pictures’ blockbuster “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and Universal Pictures’ “Sing 2” the latest examples. TikTok has evolved from a “must try” to “must have” for film marketers, given its hefty with 1 billion active monthly users, says a Deadline.com article by Dade Hayes.
TikTok is the social media web site populated by short videos from users/amateurs, and those user-generated-content videos often have a musical bent.
“Sony … set up a version of the Daily Bugle (the fictional newspaper where [“Spider-Man”] Peter Parker works) as a live destination on the platform,” says the Deadline article. “It also gave Michael Le, who posts popular TikToks as “@justmaiko,” a walk-on part in the movie. While [Le] was bound by the usual confidentially agreements during production, he was able to start sharing his on-set perspective a few days before opening weekend.”
The Daily Bugle destination, which has 1.4 million followers, presents videos of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” movie characters (the actors in character) with funny short messages and skits. The short videos are a natural fit with the TikTok short-form format.
Jeff Godsick, Sony Pictures executive vice president of global partnerships and brand management, said that an attraction is not just the sheer size of TikTok’s audience but also its users’ attachment to content. The connection to the latest “Spider-Man” is impressive given the comic-book-adaptation is the biggest blockbuster of the pandemic era with $668 million in boxoffice domestically and $1.5 billion worldwide … and still counting.
For Universal Pictures’ release of Illumination Animation’s “Sing 2” animated musical, TikTok hosted an amateur singer contest in November. The winner got a trip to the Hollywood premiere and a recording contract with Republic Records.
“The #Sing2gether initiative once again shines a light on talented individuals dreaming big dreams on TikTok every day,” says Edvin Dapcevic, team lead, media & entertainment at TikTok in a company blog post. “Sing 2” premiered domestically Dec. 22 and grossed a so-so $110 million in the U.S./Canada, which was depressed by an unexpected midwinter Covid-19 flareup.
To place TikTok in the online world, it increasingly rivals Facebook as at the top of the social media hierarchy. TikTok, owned by a China-based company ByteDance, is an example of China’s growing prowess in high-end tech and is viewed with suspicion for user privacy given its ownership.
Originally smart-phone centric, TikTok just launched an initiative to supply big-size video screens at locations where crowds gather.
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