The ban on several Chinese apps, including popular short-form video app TikTok, has caught the media industry, advertisers, marketers and content creators by surprise, and forced many companies running campaigns on these platforms to look for alternative digital avenues.
Media agency experts, though, said the government decision on Monday to ban 59 Chinese apps will not impact advertisers much despite TikTok’s meteoric rise as they are expected to move budgets and campaigns to rival platforms like Facebook‘s Instagram and Google‘s YouTube.
“So far, it’s (TikTok) not that significant a player to make a difference to the overall ad market,” said Ashish Bhasin, India chairman of Dentsu Aegis Network. TikTok as a platform had just started showing growth and the potential to garner more advertising revenue over the next year or two, he said.
Read: How the TikTok (B)anxiety unfolded among creators
As per industry estimates, TikTok earned Rs 20-25 crore in advertising in the country in the quarter ended December and it almost doubled in the first quarter of 2020. “Overall, TikTok would have garnered Rs 200-250 crore this year,” a top executive at one of the multinational agencies said on condition of anonymity.
Most of that money is now expected to be reallocated to rival platforms. “The brands will push budgets towards Instagram or YouTube,” said Akshay Popawala, cofounder of digital marketing agency Togglehead.
He said all spends on TikTok have been put on hold. “The app has been deleted from the app stores, but it is working on phones on which it had been downloaded before. We are also awaiting more details on this announcement,” he said.
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