Troup (Almost) Breaks TikTok

by Matt Dimmer, Chief Creative Officer/Partner, Troup. Matt is a creative visionary who’s most proud accomplishment to date are his twin boys. When he’s not spending time with them and his wife, he’s crafting brand stories, and enjoying coffee. Lots of it. Oh yeah, and crushing rides on Peloton, with his boy Alex. He can be caught doing impersonations to himself, as well as admiring architecture IRL or online.

TurboTax Post Close To 7 Billion Impressions

Troup is still fairly new in its life cycle. Officially, we’ve been open for about 18 months, which, as a parent, is how you talk about one of your kids until they reach two years old. We’ve been very fortunate. All of our business wins have come to us from past colleagues, friends, clients and referrals. We made relationships one of our core tenants. And it’s paying off. Throughout the past year and a half, we’ve pretty much worked on projects in every size and shape, as well as media. Except one: TikTok.

It was the one social media platform I wasn’t going to get into. Sure I downloaded it, played around a little as it’s in the zeitgeist and part of the ad world tool box, but didn’t really think I needed it. Until I did.

TikTok is like an expanding galaxy. There is so much going on. So many threads of narratives, so many trends. Some burn out quickly. Some keep going. It’s wild to watch. It’s like a live feed to today’s culture. Whatever you’re into, there’s something for you to play with. The trick for advertisers is to figure out which star is rising and which is going into a black hole.

For us, the learning happened quickly. We were given the chance to do something on the platform by a client who had solid media dollars for it. So the team at Troup not only developed some content, but we kinda’ broke TikTok for a weekend with the #TurboTaxAlpHorn. We concepted, designed and developed a branded-effect that blew the benchmark out of the water.

Engagement numbers were expected to come in around the 500mil – 1bil mark, we ended up with close to 7 billion impressions. And that was all I needed to add that to our list of capabilities. So for anyone who’s too intimidated by it, or not interested, take a couple hours and play around. I know that statement has a very niche target audience, but if this guy can do it, most likely you can too.