Creative freedom and experimentation are the most critical tools in today's marketing arsenal to thrive and meet audiences where they are. TikTok is celebrating the brands and creators that have taken creativity to new heights on the platform, and calling on the industry to embrace creative bravery at this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

In the last year, entertainment has fundamentally shifted and consumers have more choice and freedom than ever before. On TikTok, our community is constantly discovering the spark of something new. The diversity of experiences and creativity on TikTok is what encourages communities to discover and entertain new ideas, creating real world change and opportunities.

In this new era of entertainment, the TikTok community has gone from strength-to-strength, setting new global standards for togetherness, culture-defining moments and real world impact. Marketers are beginning to meet the community where they are, by embracing TikTok in bold, innovative ways, defining a new era of marketing best practice.

We call this transformative mindset "Creative Bravery", fueled by a blend of curiosity, imagination, vulnerability and courage.

"Entertainment has fundamentally shifted. Consumers have more choice than ever before and are leaning into entertainment for discovery in all areas. For brands to break through on TikTok, they need to shift from occasional displays of Creative Bravery to infusing it into daily behavior and strategies. Those who embrace such boldness will be the ones who ultimately win big."

"At this year's Cannes Lions, we are urging marketers to embrace vulnerability and push creative bounds, exploring how new creative tools and technology will enable creative at scale whilst driving business impact." said Blake Chandlee, President, Global Business Solutions.

At Cannes, we'll be unpacking how marketers everywhere can embrace this creatively brave mindset, and unlock growth via creative scale.

Creative Bravery starts with culture

The way consumers engage with content is changing. Media fragmentation and the speed of culture create an attention challenge and creative bravery is key to cutting through.

TikTok sits at the intersection between culture and creativity which gives life to this Creative Bravery mindset. From acting as the window to cultural moments like the Met Gala and Eurovision to catapulting products into virality, TikTok influences daily conversations and new trends. On TikTok, creativity sparks more creativity and inspires new forms of storytelling.

Blending curiosity, imagination, vulnerability and courage, brands demonstrating Creative Bravery on TikTok will build deeper community connections. The ones that will see most success will pique global curiosities, flip traditional story arcs, and deepen trust with their audiences. While stories can stand alone on TikTok, part of the fun for audiences is to thread unexpected stories together in gripping and surprising ways.

Brands need to be bold enough to be vulnerable and let audiences into the full process, evolving their mindset to meet these new expectations.

Audiences are seeking engagement beyond a one-time sale. They're looking for brands to lead positive societal change and establish clear brand trust and values.

The creator community at the heart of authentic connections

From #BookTok, #FashionTok to #MomsofTikTok, TikTok is home to broad and welcoming communities, where sharing similar interests and appreciating differences leads to the forging of strong connections.

Communities and creators alike are calling upon brands to participate alongside them and, importantly, to keep it real. Authenticity is what fuels content on TikTok and if brands are to bridge the gap that exists between them and communities, they must seek to shatter conventional advertising norms and build authentic connections with audiences.

TikTok has democratised discovery, allowing for a greater diversity of creators to stand out and find success on the platform. Centred around co-creation and participation, brands can collaborate with this diverse universe of creators and foster authentic connections with communities.

Marketers see that creators are driving real-world business outcomes for their brands, with 58% of TikTokers saying they’re more likely to trust brands after learning about them from creators [1]. We have invested in building a variety of solutions that allow creators to monetize content and brands to seamlessly capitalize on the value creators bring to the table.

Creative Bravery, at scale

Brands need to embrace creative freedom and experimentation and create at the speed of culture to thrive in this new ecosystem.

TikTok is building for this era of creative bravery with a suite of tools and solutions to help brands create at scale, build meaningful connections with audiences and achieve the best results. From bringing their brand personalities to life through the power of music and sound, to utilizing creators to tell their brand stories with TikTok One, and harnessing Symphony AI creative tools to maximize their creative, marketers need to embrace new creative tools and technology to help them unlock creative at scale.

Solutions that make it easier to create. Save time and scale faster with expert partners & tools.

  • TikTok One: Your all-in-one TikTok creative platform that gives brands access to nearly 2 million creators, discover top agency partners and leverage our creative tools. With TikTok All-In-One, all the resources needed to implement and scale a successful TikTok campaign are at your fingertips— with a single log-in.
  • Symphony: Symphony is TikTok's suite of ad solutions powered by generative AI. With Symphony, businesses of all sizes, creators and agencies can blend human imagination with AI-powered efficiency to help scale content development, creativity, and productivity on TikTok.Symphony Creative Studio is our generative AI-powered video generator. Creative Studio helps to speed up TikTok content creation with AI-enabled features, generating TikTok-fit videos from just a few inputs.Symphony Assistant is an AI assistant that empowers advertisers with creative knowledge to easily implement their TikTok campaigns. Symphony Ads Manager Integration is a TikTok Ads Manager integration that embeds into the creative process to automatically generate, fix, and optimize TikTok ads for better performance. Symphony Digital Avatars are AI-generated representations of real people that breathe life into your content. Created using authorized footage of real human beings and TikTok's cutting-edge in-house AI technology, avatars possess a rich array of physical movements, facial expressions, languages and voiceovers. Symphony AI Dubbing is a translation tool that allows creators and brands to connect with global audiences and make their message more inclusive and impactful. Symphony Collective: Industry Advisory Board is an advisory board to help facilitate important discussions around the development and use of AI in creative marketing. The board is comprised of a diverse range of content creators and thought leaders to provide feedback about TikTok's AI marketing solutions and discuss the industry at large.
  • Adobe Express: We have expanded our partnership with Adobe and they are now a badged Creative TikTok Marketing Partner. We have also integrated the TikTok Commercial Music Library into Adobe Express, giving brands seamlessly access to more than a million top and trending songs directly within Adobe Express to quickly create, score and publish high-impact TikTok content.


Check out our immersive space at the Carlton Hotel during the Cannes Lions festival – open to the public from Monday, June 17th – Friday, June 21st.

[1] TikTok Marketing Science Global Creators Drive Commerce Study 2022 conducted by Material