Brief:

• Postmates is offering customers in Los Angeles a chance to order some of the most shared food trends on social video app TikTok for delivery. The companies partnered on a promotion of "TikTok Treats" that are available for free delivery from several restaurants until Nov. 22, per a press release.
• The menu of treats include "cloud bread," which has been featured in videos viewed 3 billion times on TikTok, along with "whipped coffee" (2.2 billion views), "pancake cereal" (1.6 billion views) and "bento box" (259.3 million views). Each item will be made by a locally owned restaurant or café in the Los Angeles area.
• The campaign highlights TikTok's power to drive cultural trends, taps into increasing interest in food delivery and helps support small businesses that have faced enormous challenges during the pandemic.

Insight:

The collaboration among TikTok, Postmates and locally owned restaurants in Los Angeles on the "TikTok Treats" campaign combines the promotional reach of the social video app with on-demand delivery to help support small businesses that have faced enormous challenges during the pandemic. While many consumers have turned to social media for recipe ideas as they prepare more meals at home, the "TikTok Treats" promotion gives Postmates customers in Los Angeles a chance to treat themselves to some of the most popular food trends on the app.

The campaign highlights TikTok's power to drive cultural trends, such as the food preparation videos that have been shared billions of times among its users. Eighty-eight percent of TikTok users 18 or older said they discover new content through the service, while about half said they find new products through ads for products or brands, per a Nielsen study commissioned by TikTok. The company has more than 100 million users in the U.S., with 50 million people who use the app every day.

"From music to fashion to food, the TikTok community has built a reputation of starting movements that influence today's zeitgeist," Nick Tran, TikTok's head of global marketing, said in the press release.

The promotion comes as Postmates, which is owned by ride-hailing company Uber, expands its range of delivery services outside of food. Postmates this week introduced a service to let app users shop from local retailers in the Los Angeles area. Using the new "Shop" tab in the app, Postmates customers can see a selection of items from nearby retailers to order for delivery. Postmates plans to expand the service to other regions, potentially becoming a formidable presence in the e-commerce marketplace as smaller retailers with fewer financial resources to develop their digital sales channels showcase their wares in the popular app.

TikTok's collaboration with Postmates can help to position the social video app as a good corporate citizen that supports local businesses. That effort may not alleviate the concerns of the Trump administration, which plans to ban the app in the U.S. because of national security concerns over its ownership by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. Courts are currently weighing whether to a grant an injunction against the ban, while TikTok is currently in talks with the U.S. Defense and Justice Departments about ways to secure the data of U.S. users, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the talks.