⁍ Major advertisers including Procter & Gamble PG.N, Danone DANO.PA and Chipotle Mexican Grill CMG.N are committed to spending on TikTok.
⁍ TikTok faces a possible ban in the U.S. after the government accused it of being a national security risk.
⁍ Politicians on both sides of the aisle have criticized the app’s security and privacy rules.
– If the US government succeeds in banning TikTok—a Chinese-owned video-sharing app it says is a national security risk—major US advertisers could find themselves out of a lot of money. TikTok, which has around 5 million users in the US, “represents what social media stands for in advertising right now,” the head of social strategy at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy New York tells Reuters. “For us, it’s all about being where our consumers are and making sure we are executing our campaigns in a safe way.” TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company in China that also owns Instagram. The US government argues that TikTok’s user data could end up in the hands of China’s government, and a court hearing on whether to ban the app in the US will be held Nov. 4, the day after the presidential election. Walmart and Oracle are in talks to take stakes in a new company TikTok Global that would oversee US operations, but major advertisers including Procter & Gamble, Danone, and Chipotle say they will continue to spend on TikTok even if the app is banned, the Guardian reports. “TikTok epitomizes what social media stands for in advertising right now,” the Wieden + Kennedy New York rep says. “Our clients are concerned about any type of political conversation that might swirl around them, generally speaking.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-advertisers/pg-other-advertisers-to-stick-by-tiktok-unless-clock-runs-out-idUSKBN26T2DG