MANILA, PHILIPPINES — As we look forward to a new year, I would like to share key trends that we expect will shape 2024.
Over the years, we’ve all been witnessing an evolution of information and influence, particularly as society, consumer behaviors, and demands are shifting.
The 20th century was known as the “Age of Context,” when print was the influencing voice for our purchase decisions. But it was a faceless and anonymous one-way dialogue. Then, with the new millennium came the “Age of Knowledge,” where we searched for content, answers, and solutions from search engines.
Search began to evolve. It started to happen on mobile devices, specifically in social media apps, where we could see what our friends were posting. This was the “Age of Social,” where decisions were based on social currency.
Today, we are in the “Age of Content,” driven by a video and mobile-first generation as well as by discovery and self-expression; where people and communities participate in all kinds of movements. Our friends and family don’t decide what we consume anymore. Instead, we are spontaneously discovering and creating on our own.
This is one of the reasons why TikTok has accelerated a global movement today. Its recommendation system and short format videos have created an explosion of content about everything, powered by a community and a generation of storytellers that intuitively create. The power of such content has disrupted the market, evoking behaviors in people that we didn’t know we even needed.
This is seen in the top trending content communities on TikTok in the Philippines, which cover everything from space to safety to mental well-being and even to shopping:
- #space – content about what is beyond the earth such as stars and planets, had 109 million views in just one month.
- #safety – content about how to stay safe in the Philippines and what to do in the face of calamities and adversities had 29 million views in one month.
- #sundayreset – content sharing how a community of content creators do home improvement projects on Sundays had 20 million views in one month.
- #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt – a community of shoppers sharing their latest finds on TikTok has almost 70 billion views; its local counterpart #BudolFinds, meanwhile, has 7.2 billion views.
Thus, we see that the future of storytelling will be fueled by discoveries, driven by creativity, and guided by collaboration.
Meanwhile, here are three trends that we think will take us to 2024:
The Rise in Prosumerism
The power to create has driven a democratization of content where anyone can create. The traditional pyramid of influence, where only one could speak down to many, has now evolved into circles of influence, which creates ripples of influences of many to many. Influence is no longer top-down and linear; instead influence means connecting in ways that truly resonate with people – by people in a decentralized manner that drives inclusion for all. This is reflected in a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) commissioned by TikTok, where 90% of consumers skip ads and 43% of digital users download ad blockers.
The Creative Renaissance
Telling stories at scale has been the big challenge in the past, but with the advent of new technology, this barrier has been lifted: stories can be told more often, with more context to reach more people. At TikTok, we are reimagining creativity and building solutions to stay ahead of the shift. This means combining value and variety in how humans and technology converge with the frequency of storytelling.
Over the past two years, we see how technology plays a major role in bringing creative barriers down and giving access to all. The next creative renaissance is here, where we believe the combination of human ingenuity and technical empowerment will drive exponential growth and scale. We see a co-creating process where technology brings large-scale analysis and speed while humans bring creativity, intuition, and contextual understanding.
And with this, the future of creating is also looking much easier. As a technology company in service of storytelling at scale, TikTok has always been focusing on building the creative ecosystem to power this evolution. Many of you probably have experienced or used some of the tools we launched in the past few quarters, such as Creative Assistant, Creative Center and TikTok Creative Exchange.
Discoveries; The New Frontier
Consumers are now more intentional in the way they interact with content and we see this in how TikTok users use the “for you feed.”
In fact, we found that to optimize their discoveries, consumers are now more intentionally interacting with content. On TikTok, they use the “for you feed” by liking, commenting, and saving posts for better recommendations and experiences.
So the scroll doesn’t have to be mindless. Instead, it has become evident that users are increasingly using TikTok to search for content to watch, trends to follow, and products to purchase. This is why we launched the Search ads toggle to help brands capture these moments of discovery and play a more active role in consumers’ journeys.
As we move forward in the “Age of Content,” we look forward to enabling people and communities to participate in creative self-expression that nurtures entertaining content. We believe that the diversity of experiences, communities, and content builds connection and understanding through the shared language of video and we will continue to build an entertaining and uplifting platform that brings a positive impact to the Philippine community.
About the author
Life Dawn Cervero
Vertical Lead, and a Creative and Culture Champion for TikTok Philippines.
She has experience in Web Production, Game Development, Advertising Creatives, ecommerce, and has handled several brands – ranging from QSRs, F&B, CPG, FMCG, and TELCO.
At TikTok she enables partners to share their stories and walk the TikTok talk.
