Variety Presents: Gaming on TikTok Leadership Summit featuring conversations with executives and creatives on the leading edge of video games, entertainment and content.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I imagine many of you have some understanding of live,
00:04but maybe I can share with you guys a little bit more about live on TikTok,
00:08and then obviously how gaming has revolutionized this area.
00:14So before, just quickly about me,
00:16I've been here at TikTok for about three years,
00:18really focused on building out live for the Western markets.
00:21And obviously, we started from pretty nascent experiences,
00:25but now getting to quite a large kind of industry experience
00:31and obviously industry impact.
00:34So that being said, I do want to take a step back
00:36and first talk about live holistically,
00:38and I promise I will get to the gaming section.
00:42First and foremost, I don't know if you guys know,
00:44but we have millions of creators creating live content every day on TikTok.
00:50That number is massive.
00:52And on top of that, obviously, the viewership numbers are significant too.
00:57One out of every few TikTok users are actually engaging with live content,
01:02and not just in the sense of like, can I watch it for a few seconds,
01:06but we're talking about tens and dozens of minutes.
01:09So with that being said, I do want to paint the picture of live holistically
01:12and then how gaming gets in there.
01:15First is we have three real big values for live on TikTok
01:18that's a little bit different.
01:20The first is we really care about democratizing content creation.
01:24This is all about enabling anyone.
01:27Anyone can identify themselves as a creator,
01:30and anyone can identify themselves as a content specialist,
01:34and obviously everyone can create on TikTok.
01:36We have really easy tools, low barrier to entry,
01:40and to make sure that everyone, doesn't matter if you're a viewer,
01:43a community member, brand, publisher,
01:45you can actually create content on live itself.
01:48Second is our biggest value proposition is all about interaction.
01:53You know, we talk about things like chatting and gifting and subscriptions
01:56and sharing and play together and co-create,
01:59and we talk about a lot of that across TikTok in general.
02:02But more importantly, we'll talk about two other elements
02:05that will allow everyone to come together
02:09to kind of create that interactive content.
02:12And that's one of the biggest selling points of TikTok
02:14is our community is significantly more engaged.
02:18Together with the creators, with their community,
02:21with chat, with everyone else on stream.
02:24And then third is we built live as an infrastructure layer also, right?
02:28This is enabling publishers, entertainment brands,
02:31other ecosystem partners to build on top
02:35of the TikTok live value propositions
02:37and the things that enable everyone to create content.
02:41So with that being said, gaming on TikTok live,
02:44we have three kind of focus areas.
02:47The first is we really want to build an entertainment-forward gaming community.
02:52And, you know, we talked about co-creation.
02:56That is our form of entertainment is everything is fun,
02:59everything can come together,
03:01and it is going to be different than everything else that you see out there.
03:05Second is we all recognize that creators are the lifeblood of a UGC platform.
03:10We're going to obviously make them monetize, right?
03:13We're going to help them make sure that they can do this over and over.
03:16They can do, they can stream, they can create, they can have fun,
03:20but they obviously should be rewarded for the efforts that they put in.
03:24And then, of course, for everyone here,
03:26we want publishers and brands to also have value.
03:30We talked about the combination of O and O channels, organic, paid.
03:34All of those things do culminate together here on live also.
03:39So obviously, I do want to talk about the why.
03:42I'll quickly talk through some of those elements,
03:44but I also do want to talk about the how.
03:46And I think that's going to be the crux of today's conversation.
03:51First, let me just do a quick marketing slide here.
03:55Obviously, we want to show you guys that TikTok is massive in life.
04:00Obviously, there's other game streaming platforms,
04:04and there's some numbers associated to that.
04:06There obviously are general OTT streaming platforms,
04:09and we've shared some general subscriber that's a top five OTT platform.
04:14But then we look at TikTok, right?
04:16So our numbers are significantly bigger, and this is daily, right?
04:20These are people that are coming and watching live gaming content every day on TikTok.
04:26And this isn't even counting the adjacent audiences that we have access to
04:30or over the billion-plus users that we've talked about in the past.
04:34These are people that are coming and watching live gaming content of our creators every day.
04:41And also, we've really, really invested in gaming.
04:45This is a little bit of a graph here,
04:47but obviously, we want to show that there are creators that are creating more and more content.
04:51It is the fastest-growing content category on TikTok Live.
04:55But more importantly, the viewership numbers are exceedingly the same, right?
05:00They're growing just as much as the creators.
05:02And this shows that it's a very healthy ecosystem.
05:05As more creators create content, more viewers are actually watching it, right?
05:08Supply and demand.
05:11And this is a slide that we love to talk about is our audience is not on other platforms.
05:19That's a key thing.
05:20We've built such a unique community on TikTok that they love us.
05:25They choose us first over anything else out there, right?
05:28These are net new viewers and creators, and they're finding a home here on TikTok and TikTok Live.
05:36So, with that being said, let me show you how all of the live content shows up in the TikTok experience.
05:43And more importantly, there's also a dedicated entrance to live content, right?
05:47This is our investment to make sure that people really can discover all the amazing live content that is on the platform.
05:56Take control of your life.
05:58Drinks.
06:00Smoke.
06:00I just want to rewind.
06:03All right, we're putting three large chicken breasts.
06:05Thank you for the fix.
06:08Who's ready for Monopoly?
06:09Only if we can play the cheater's birthday.
06:11Who are you calling a cheater?
06:20Got no wallbangs?
06:21I'm a bitch. Do I know that I'm a shy person too?
06:23I don't know, but...
06:27Cool. So, let's get into the how and the meat of today's conversation.
06:32First is, we do want to recognize that TikTok is much more than video.
06:37It's much more than live, but there is a difference between short video content and live content, right?
06:42So, let me paint that for you first.
06:45For live content, our viewers are watching live content significantly more, right?
06:49They're spending much more time engaging, interacting, and then obviously finding a great experience.
06:56So, the average watch time per user who's actually watching live, they're much more focused, right?
07:02And because of that, there's a much more stronger ability to drive attention.
07:07And more importantly, they drive engagement and association, right?
07:11Those are really important things about live, right?
07:14It's kind of like you and I today.
07:16You guys can see me talk.
07:17I can see your expression.
07:18That's a much more engaging kind of element than just watching something on VOD somewhere else.
07:26So, first, I do want to talk about one of our kind of biggest new initiatives on TikTok and gaming,
07:33and obviously live, is game rewards, right?
07:36This is an opportunity as a publisher for you to give rewards from your games to the TikTok community,
07:44whether through creators and obviously from creators to their community.
07:50So, let me play a short video, obviously, in TikTok fashion about game rewards.
07:55So, one like, I'm going to do it.
08:00She's going to do it, chat.
08:01One like.
08:01I can't see them at all.
08:08I'm going to...
08:13They playing VB, Daddy.
08:18I got you.
08:26So, you may ask, what is different about game rewards compared to any other kind of form of, you know,
08:34quote-unquote drops of content on platforms?
08:37And for us on TikTok, as I mentioned earlier, we're really focused on interaction, right?
08:43And because of this focus on interaction, we make sure that both the creators as well as their communities
08:51actually have these concepts of tasks that actually they have to go do before they actually get these rewards.
08:59And these tasks, again, create much stronger association between creators and their community,
09:05and also a lot more buy-in, right?
09:07So, you know, if the task is too easy, you can imagine you can reward a ton of viewers associated to that.
09:13However, maybe their association to your reward or your brand is much lower.
09:18However, when we actually have kind of this gamification element,
09:22and in this case, you probably see we have comment tasks or share tasks or watch tasks.
09:27So, as an example, comment tasks may say,
09:30hey, you need to actually put in this particular thing in chat, this particular phrase, this particular acronym.
09:39And only after you do that, can you potentially unlock this reward.
09:43A share task is actually a very high-value action, right?
09:46It's literally saying, can you share this live stream of your favorite content creator
09:52and their brands with everyone else in your community, in your, you know, Rolodex?
09:57And obviously, that is a very high-value action.
10:00But if they're willing to go do that, that's also making sure that they have high association.
10:05And obviously, we can do watch tasks, right?
10:07Like, can you watch, you know, X number of creators or X number of minutes of some portion of a content?
10:14And then before you get that particular rewards.
10:16These elements, you can string them together in combination, or you can do it individually.
10:21But what we found is when you actually ask users and creators and communities to come together
10:28and educate everyone about how to actually get these game rewards,
10:34the interaction and obviously the association is significantly stronger.
10:38And people love it, right?
10:39TikTok users love taking these actions.
10:42And that's part of the reason why they have a much longer watch time, much higher engagement,
10:47much higher recognition of the content creators and their content.
10:52So again, let's take a look at how that actually comes into action.
10:56500 Club Tower.
10:58Let me show you guys if you haven't seen it.
11:06I've been in here working on this point.
11:10Yeah, dude.
11:11Chat picked out this one for you today.
11:12It's looking great.
11:16So this is a great example.
11:17That video obviously was Minecraft.
11:20And Minecraft worked with TikTok and our teams on a collaboration across everything that we have
11:27to offer on the platform.
11:29Not only is it leveraging all of the O and O channels that we have on the platform,
11:33but it's also leveraging TikTok's access to not just really good high quality creators,
11:39but their community of like-minded creators.
11:43And then obviously one of the unique things is GIFs on the platform.
11:47We were always able to create specific IP related GIFs.
11:52Ultimately, this created a significant association between creators,
11:56their brands, discovery on the platform, as well as their community.
12:00And obviously during this campaign period,
12:03millions of rewards were given to viewers of these creators and their community.
12:09And it was a huge success, right?
12:11Sentiment-wise, viewers loved it.
12:14And then obviously engagement was significantly high.
12:19And this is also a real big benefit for creators.
12:21Creators love this, especially up-and-coming creators.
12:24They realize that obviously if they are able to associate themselves with brands,
12:29they're able to associate with gameplay.
12:31They're able to associate with gameplay rewards.
12:34That is also an avenue to unlock bigger growth for them.
12:37And they see obviously significantly more engagement
12:41in their chat with their community, both online and offline.
12:44But more importantly, they see significant amount of viewership increase also, right?
12:48So this becomes a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.
12:54So most importantly, make sure you have creators, right?
12:57This could be your creators.
12:59This could be leveraging TikTok's access to UGC creators.
13:03This could be figuring out the next generation of creators.
13:07But creators at scale is one of the key elements of success for game rewards.
13:13And obviously, make sure that you have really interesting in-game items, right?
13:17These are the things that you want viewers and gamers to really, really engage with.
13:22Make sure that's a really interesting in-game item.
13:25And then work with our team.
13:27We have significant amount of promotional levers.
13:29You saw Minecraft leverage Search Hub, campaign pages,
13:33creator activations, O&O channels.
13:35All of these levers can come together to really amplify this particular success.
13:42And the second thing that we do want to talk about,
13:45obviously still in beta, is our gaming incentive program.
13:49And this is essentially similar to affiliate marketing,
13:52where we leverage our creators and the vast wealth of creators and their experiences
13:59to get their community to take some sort of action, right?
14:03So what that means is it obviously allows brand exposure to amplify at scale, right?
14:08This network effect.
14:09If you can get one creator to talk to their community
14:13and their community to talk to other creators,
14:14and those creators to talk to other creators,
14:16and everyone has this ability to leverage this gaming incentive program's capability,
14:22all of a sudden you create this significant network effect
14:25that really, really amplifies the brand exposure.
14:30And second, obviously, is this is a win situation for creators.
14:33All creators are looking for ways to monetize,
14:36and obviously this is a way for them to also monetize while,
14:40more importantly, they're already doing this on the platform.
14:43They're already playing the game.
14:44They're already talking about the game and the mechanics with their community.
14:48They're already exploring what the next generation of gaming is looking like,
14:53and they're already doing that at scale.
14:55You might as well tap into that.
14:56That's already happening on the platform.
14:58And again, similar to general ability, we can drive downloads, right?
15:04That's going to be a really important element here.
15:08So that being said, obviously, I'll take some Q&A
15:12if there's any questions from the audience here,
15:14but I do want to talk about the fact that creators are really, really important.
15:18We talked about early on the platform,
15:20we have millions and millions of creators creating content every day,
15:24and that number on TikTok can continue to grow.
15:27And our platform is more than enough to kind of house
15:31all of these amazing creators and their potential.
15:34So please bring your brand ambassadors as creators,
15:37get them to try out going live.
15:39It is such an amazing community,
15:41and they're going to find a lot of value out of that.
15:44Second is, make sure your content is also on TikTok Live, right?
15:48We have such amazing distribution and discovery capabilities,
15:52but more importantly, we're just starting to see
15:54more and more demand from our viewers to say,
15:57give me more authentic interaction, engaging live content,
16:01and they're finding that authenticity of that content
16:04to be really meaningful for them.
16:06And obviously, you know, we have Tina here in the audience.
16:10Please talk to her about kind of our new offerings
16:13around Game Rewards and Gaming Incentive Program.