Brief:

• Hero Cosmetics, a startup that makes overnight skin patches to treat acne, today launched an influencer campaign on TikTok, doubling down on the social video app the company claims has outperformed results on Instagram, according to an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
• The "Get Ready With Me" promotion targeted at Gen Zers features 20 creators who will post videos of their morning routines with Hero's Mighty Patch product and the hashtag #schoolsurvivalkit. To accompany the TikTok content, Hero is giving away free acne patches between Aug. 19 and Sept. 19 to students with an email address that ends in .edu. The company estimates the campaign will reach 4 million TikTok users.
• Hero's latest social video campaign follows one that accompanied its introduction to 1,500 Target stores last month. The push helped to double Hero's sales goals at Target. TikTok videos were seven times more cost-effective than Instagram Stories and showed a 12% engagement rate, compared to 4.5% for Instagram. Creators for that campaign boasted a combined audience size of 1.5 million and reached 4.3 million TikTok users.

Insight:

Hero's results marketing its introduction to Target stores through TikTok were strong enough to merit another campaign on the app just one month later and as many Gen Zers prepare to head back to school. The brand's prior work on TikTok indicates the ByteDance-owned app can be a more cost-effective platform for influencer marketing than Facebook's Instagram.

Instagram, which helped popularize the influencer marketing trend, has recently seen engagement rates on influencer posts hover near all-time lows amid a saturation in the market, according to analytics firm InfluencerDB.​​ TikTok, which is especially popular with U.S. teens, is newer and comparably less crowded with advertisers and influencers, which might help brands like Hero stand out.

The beauty brand is an early adopter of TikTok among cosmetics companies increasingly seeking opportunities on the social video app. Too Faced Cosmetics, a brand owned by Estée Lauder, saw a jump in sales in March as teens on TikTok started using the product in a challenge with their friends and followers, Glossy reported. Too Faced's increased sales led it to become the first beauty brand to collaborate with TikTok in June. 

Influencer marketing is set to grow 40% to $6.5 billion in 2019 from last year, per Influencer Marketing Hub. Researcher Sensor Tower cites TikTok as one of the most popular apps in the world based on installs. Brands such as Chipotle Mexican Grill, Grubhub, Guess, Macy's, Sony Pictures and Uniqlo have recently run campaigns and viral challenges on TikTok to try and capture on its success.

Hero has expanded its multichannel marketing efforts since its launch on Amazon in September 2017. The brand debuted its own e-commerce site last June, and earlier this year introduced its products in brick-and-mortar stores, starting with clothing retailer Anthropologie.