"Many advertisers have concerns about TikTok and its Chinese owners....But companies keep flocking to the app... because it appears to have reach and cultural cachet..."

"Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok has ads appear like any other full-screen video on the platform, so they aren’t always immediately discernible as ads. The app has pushed brands to work with its content creators, making ads seem even more natural. It has told brands: 'Don’t make ads, make TikToks.'...  Last year, the men’s fashion company Swet Tailor posted a TikTok video advertising the same shirt, in different colors, being thrown onto a rotating man. The video garnered 5,000 views, far more than most TikTok videos posted by the company, which has fewer than 300 followers. In two weeks, Swet Tailor sold 35 percent of its inventory for the shirt, when it normally would have sold 5 percent. By contrast, Facebook and Instagram ads 'barely moved the needle,' said Adam Bolden, the clothing brand’s chief executive.... Still, advertising on TikTok is not necessarily straightforward. That’s partly because brands have to avoid becoming, to cite a meme frequently seen on the platform, a middle-aged, skateboard-carrying Steve Buscemi saying, 'How do you do, fellow kids?'"

From "TikTok Builds Itself Into an Ads Juggernaut/The Chinese-owned video app’s ad business is thriving, even as a digital advertising slump hurts Meta, Snap and other rivals" (NYT).

On TikTok, you don't just get views, you garner views.

Here's the Know Your Meme article on "How do you do, fellow kids?"