TikTok pushes to attract SMBs and its latest advertising tool might just do the trick

The tool itself sits within the platform’s Symphony AI suite, which launched in May, and also encompasses its AI-powered avatars. These tools are overseen by the Symphony Collective — an advisory board assembled by TikTok brands and creators to discuss challenges of AI in creative marketing, as well as offer feedback on the platform’s tools.

Symphony Creative Studio is TikTok’s new AI-powered video generator tool, which enables advertisers to create TikToks in minutes, with minimal input. The product is free to use and only requires a logged-in TikTok for Business account.

Sounds too easy, right? Well, that’s the whole point. Michael Fee, global product marketing manager for TikTok Symphony said SMBs have cited not knowing where to start or how to show up on TikTok, as being their biggest pain point, and subsequently biggest barrier to advertising on the platform.

Which is why TikTok is using automation to try and remove as much of that friction as possible. 

“Many of these smaller businesses do not have the resources or knowledge to invest in video production, which is more expensive than other forms of ad creative,” said Matthew Bailey, senior principal analyst, advertising at Omdia. “For this reason, advances in generative AI provide an opportunity to lower the barrier to entry to video advertising — a key concern for TikTok given its role as a social video app.”

Call it a win-win: By effectively doing the job for them, marketers get a whole bunch of content without the cost and effort (and quicker), while TikTok wins by getting an endless stream of uploaded content.

“We built the tool so whatever your maturity, or your resource availability might look like, you can essentially have that level playing field to work with,” said Adrienne Lahens, TikTok’s global head of content strategy and operations. “Creative Studio helps to really boost productivity because these tools can help you to scale and augment your creative strategies, hyper personalize your content, and free you up as a creative creator, marketer, so you can focus on the more pressing issues.”

So how exactly does it work?

Creative Studio has three main capabilities. 

The first is to generate and remix new videos.

Advertisers input a URL to their brand’s website, TikTok Shop or Amazon Storefront, or manually upload any business details or brand assets, and within two minutes, the studio conjures up several videos from the input material. The creative studio enables advertisers to easily edit elements of those videos, like the script, the music, the narration, the voice, any effects and transitions.

“The creative studio takes into account a lot of the creative best practices in terms of having the right hook, where to place the call to action, layering in music and voiceover, and it also tailors the outputs, based on your product, your vertical to generate that content that’s really relevant to your audience,” said Lahens. “So if you don’t have any content available to you as a brand, you can generate those assets with that function.” 

A case study Lahens pointed to was U.S. drinkware brand Meoky, which used the studio to create numerous videos using URLs. So far, the brand has achieved a 1.8x increase in purchases and a 13% increase return on ad spend. Though specific figures weren’t shared.

The second capability is making variations of existing content to give it a fresh or localized look. For example, videos produced in English can be tweaked using the dubbing and translation tools to reach audiences across the 10 languages that the studio has mastered.

Other case studies Lahens highlighted for this feature was U.S. service provider Apartment Life, and German performance marketing agency Voggsmedia, the latter of which is also a TikTok partner. Both saw a 50% improvement in CPAs because they were able to reach wider audiences, by translating their videos in these instances to Spanish.

Creative Studio’s third feature is automatically generating new TikToks for you every 24 hours, taking into account some of the latest trends of the top performing ads.

“The goal we set out is we want our advertisers to never run out of content when using the creative studio,” said Lahens. 

Once the content is creative, advertisers can either post it on the platform for a campaign, or upload it to TikTok’s AI black box tool, Smart+ and let the tool distribute it for them.

It’s a notable leap of faith in AI, but according to Lahens, control hasn’t been an issue so far. In fact, using the tool has given advertisers a lot of peace of mind, because all of the content that is output from the creative studio is only based on either the assets that they’re inputting into the system, she said. And there’s no worry about copyright issues because the studio has a wealth of approved stock images, videos, thanks to TikTok’s partnerships with Billo and Getty Images, along with digital avatars and commercial music which is royalty free.

Looking ahead, marketers will gain even more flexibility. They’ll be able to tweak existing videos by switching out elements like music of the opening hook while keeping everything else intact.

Having tools like this is another way for TikTok to try to reassure smaller advertisers, who already manage Google and Meta spend and have limited marketing teams, that they can multi-home on TikTok without paying an enormous price in time or effort, explained Jamie MacEwan, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis.

“It’s really important given how much Reels and Shorts have grown, and the fact that Meta and Google are continually improving their tools that convert creative across a range of formats, including short-form video,” he added. “These advertisers tend to focus more on immediate ROI, so the hope will be that reducing upfront costs can give them more leeway on their bids for clicks and impressions.”