TikTok has announced the winners of the inaugural UK TikTok Awards, its first formal awards programme which celebrates the campaigns that helped define TikTok in 2022. The TikTok Awards recognise and reward the agencies and brands leading the way on the platform with creative, high-performing campaigns that drive significant business impact.
The UK TikTok Awards categories
- Greatest Creative recognises the brands who push the boundaries of creativity on the platform
- Greatest Performance rewards the measurable results of campaigns on TikTok
- Greatest TikTok is awarded to the campaign that truly embodies entertainment and feels the most inherently TikTok.
Greatest TikTok
A jury made up of 10 expert judges from across the UK advertising and marketing industry crowned Channel 4’s in-house creative team, 4creative, the inaugural Greatest TikTok winner. Its campaign blended the popular “tell me without telling me” trend with accessibility features and diverse creators to create an inclusive Channel 4 Branded Hashtag Challenge #AltogetherDifferent. Through the Hashtag Challenge, the TikTok community were invited to create their own videos celebrating what makes them different. Over the course of the campaign, 827,000 individual TikTok videos were created.
To reward its win, 4creative will receive $50,000 in TikTok advertising credit, a paid local media partnership and a host of other TikTok prizes. It will also be invited to the TikTok Awards European Grand Prix in Amsterdam alongside other Greatest TikTok winners across the continent, where the ultimate champion will be selected.
Greatest Creative
Meanwhile, the UK’s Greatest Creative Award goes to the agency BBH for its Voice of the Checkout activation with Tesco. Aimed at growing the number of younger Clubcard users, the campaign used TikTok’s Duet feature to interview the community and see if they were worthy of saying Tesco’s signature phrase, “Clubcard accepted.” Already a viral sensation, the campaign achieved five million organic views in the first 24 hours, leading one judge to call it “a great buzz-driving execution”.
Greatest Performance
SLG Brands took home the Greatest Performance Award after its success using TikTok to raise brand awareness and drive sales for its cult barbershop brand Johnny’s Chop Shop. Partnering with barber and viral creator Elliot Forbes (@elliotforbes), Johnny’s Chop Shop posted a series of entertaining and educational tips, tricks and Q&A videos about haircare and what it’s like to be a barber. In addition to millions of views, huge follower growth and uplift in brand awareness, Johnny’s Chop Shop has seen 25% year-on-year sales growth since turning its attention to TikTok. All this led the judges to commend the work’s clear and engaging style, combined with a strong content strategy.
Every day I’m impressed by the creativity and performance from agencies and brands of all sizes on TikTok, but the calibre of entries into the UK’s first ever TikTok Awards has been fantastic. From jumping on viral trends and leveraging our amazing creators to shining a light on important issues, these campaigns have truly embraced TikTok’s mission to entertain, inspire creativity and bring joy. They show why our platform continues to be the ultimate place for brands to push the boundaries of creativity and drive real results for their businesses. Congratulations to all the winners!
– Kris Boger, General Manager, Global Business Solutions, TikTok UK
UK TikTok Awards Entries
Greatest Creative – the shortlist
Social Chain | Amazon Originals | Just So You Know
Inspired by season two of Prime Video’s hit show Modern Love, Just So You Know became the first Amazon X TikTok Original Series to be created. Amazon (@amazonmusic) enlisted six top LGBTQ+ creators to recite love letters, overlayed on footage of their chosen art form, including dance, drag and drill. The series was directed by three LGBTQ+ contributors to the creative arts. The series received over 17M views and saw over 200k engagements.
Burberry | Jelly
Burberry (@burberry) was keen to create the kind of TikTok-native content people would be immediately drawn to, while retaining its iconic branding. Using the #ArtofBurberry hashtag (61.9M views), Burberry created ‘jelly’ versions of iconic products such as its Lola Bag, Arthur Sneaker and Burberry Check. The ads saw the products wobbling across screens in an oddly satisfying way against a backdrop of unexpected music, resulting in more than 400k views.
Burberry | What is Lola?
Burberry (@burberry)wanted to capture the attention of a Gen Z audience, while driving brand heat and cultural relevancy. The ‘What is Lola?’ campaign saw major TikTok creators interpret key Burberry products with their own creative style, tailored to their own specific audiences. 10 hand-picked creators asked the question, ‘What is Lola?’, creating a dialogue about what the Lola Bag means to them. @amauryguichon even interpreted it as a cake, which racked up 3.4m views and 230k likes.
Burberry | Sylvanian Drama
In this unexpected creator collaboration, Burberry (@burberry)teamed up with the iconic Sylvanian Drama creator (@sylvaniandrama), who produces creative and witty content featuring the Sylvanian Families animal collection. The two teamed up to create a bespoke TikTok storyline centred around Burberry’s Lola Bag, including some dramatic revelations and outlandish rumours. The video went down a storm on TikTok, with over 3m combined views on the Burberry TikTok channel and 6.4m on the Sylvanian Drama channel.
Arts University Bournemouth | Prompt | AUB’s conspiracy theory
Jumping on the #conspiracytheories trend on TikTok (2.6B views), Arts University Bournemouth’s Communications Officer decided to produce her own spoof conspiracy theory video, alleging the university’s Vice Chancellor Paul Gough was in fact Banksy. The video was a TikTok masterpiece, leveraging the platform’s editing features to drop in several convincing clues suggesting that Paul was in fact the famously elusive artist. The organic video on Arts University Bournemouth’s TikTok page (@inspiredaub) was viewed more than 1m times and received over 150k likes.
HUGO BOSS | BOSS | Milan FW22 Fashion Week
Global premium fashion brand BOSS (@boss) wanted to turn its latest fashion show at Milan Fashion Week into a viral TikTok success. To do this, it enlisted a crew of professional music video directors and a cast of TikTok stars to take over the streets of Milan with an action-filled storyline. A series of teaser videos were released the day before the show to build excitement and encourage the community to tune into the TikTok LIVE steam of the event. The campaign surpassed 385m views and helped to boost BOSS’ follower count by 8.8%.
Dr. Martens | #BreakInDocs
In order to drive engagement within the TikTok community, Dr. Martens (@drmartens) tapped into research showing people were already actively sharing tips for breaking in Docs boots on the platform, a trend that initially took off during the pandemic. The brand enlisted the help of creators in its core markets to tap into the #HowTo trend by showcasing creative ways to break in their docs. The result was a series of creative fast-cut 30-60-second montages using the hashtag#BreakInDocs, which currently stands at 9m views.
Greatest Performance – the shortlist
PGOne | Tampax | Sticking two fingers up at tampon discomfort
The campaign aimed to educate young people on how to use a tampon and dispel myths surrounding instructions for their use. To do this, Tampax worked with TikTok female comedy creators to produce a series of entertaining and useful videos with the aim of giving women a more comfortable experience with tampons. @shericebanton‘s funny take on showing how to insert a tampon received nearly 2m likes.
Crafted + The University of Greenwich | Clearing the way for conversions
The University of Greenwich used TikTok to help the university stay competitive in the market for places in Clearing. To do this, they created a series of videos leveraging TikTok trends which encouraged people to sign up to its Clearing platform and showcased why the University of Greenwich is a great place to be a student. The majority of TikTok videos were created by the staff and students themselves, adding an extra layer of authenticity to the work. The campaign exceeded expectations and proved to be a strong channel for both awareness and conversions, even outperforming paid search.
GEN Z TALENT | Lucky Trip
Travel app Lucky Trip worked with TikTok creators to create authentic ads encouraging downloads of the Lucky Trip app. The best-performing content was boosted using TikTok’s Spark Ads solution to further push the videos onto the For You Pages of Lucky Trip’s target audience. The brand worked with popular creators @live_thedash, who showed how they went on holiday for the less than the price of a train ticket, which received over 280k likes.
MG OMD | M·A·C | MACStack Mascara – TikTok Made Me Buy It
To mark the launch of M.A.C Stack mascara, the brand deployed a smart paid strategy to achieve TikTok virality for M.A.C’s biggest launch of the year. With mass creator engagement, the brand empowered a range of diverse #BeautyTok creators to interpret the product in their own unique style and tone of voice, to a bespoke music track. TikTok videos were then amplified across the funnel, leveraging high impact awareness formats through to lead generation and conversion.
Cult LDN | Jack Wills
In order to capture the TikTok community’s attention, Jack Wills hosted the ultimate summer getaway: The TikTok Ibiza House. The activation was designed to showcase an aspirational collaboration with high-profile TikTok creators, while creating authentic and engaging content. The campaign resulted in 60M views of the #tiktokhouseibiza hashtag and more than 39k new followers of the Jack Wills TikTok account. To continue raising brand awareness and capitalise on this success, the brand created a ’90s dance-driven Hashtag Challenge encouraging people to #JustJack and show off their best dance moves.
MVF Global | How MVF scaled everything, everywhere, all at once
Customer generation platform MVF Global used TikTok to unlock new customers for its clients, aiming to connect the over 40s with products they never thought they would find. MVF experimented with TikTok’s editing features and leveraged viral trends, enlisting everyone from its IT team to Exec board members to create ads. MVF formalised this into a monthly ‘TikTok Creative Week’, which saw it create hundreds of TikToks each month. Over the past 12 months, the company has launched and scaled campaigns across 30 diverse products (from Hearing Aids to CRM systems) in 15 countries, leading to 600M impressions and 160k conversions.
The Pharm, WPP | Boots | Love Island Partnership
The campaign aimed to help Boots show up as the UK’s number one beauty brand and own the cultural conversation by leveraging its partnership with ITV’s Love Island. This involved creating a suite of unique, TikTok-specific content with the Islanders in the villa, including a skincare routine with fan favourite Davide. To support this, Boots worked with a range of creators and ex-Islanders (including last year’s winner Millie), to create a library of content ranging from get ready with me videos to Q&As and transition videos, all promoting awareness and advocacy for Boots as the beauty partner for Love Island.
L’Oreal | Elvive Hydra | The UK’s biggest haircare launch in history
The campaign aimed to reach new audiences by launching Elvive Hydra on TikTok, with a Branded Mission Hashtag Challenge and a gifting initiative inviting creators to take part. It started with creators posting review videos, which dermatologists then stitched together to give their own expert opinions and answer questions from the TikTok community.
