Alan Walker and TikTok have rolled out a comprehensive campaign despite the app’s imminent forced-sale deadline in the U.S. Photo Credit: Cristhian Miro
What TikTok ban? Less than one week out from its forced-sale deadline in the U.S., the video-sharing app has unveiled a far-reaching tie-up with Alan Walker.
ByteDance-owned TikTok and Norway-based Alan Walker just recently disclosed their “exclusive partnership,” which coincides with the release of the 27-year-old’s latest album. Walker’s fifth overall, that album, Walkerworld 2.0, is distributed via TikTok’s SoundOn.
Running with the point, the short-form platform is pulling out all the stops to promote the project – including, despite the mentioned divestment cutoff, in the States.
At the top level, the multifaceted marketing campaign encompasses the usual components, among them an “in-app experience,” an exclusive livestream, and exclusive videos from the artist.
Also part of the comprehensive effort, however, are “video creation challenges” with prizes for users, exclusive access to and discounts for Walker’s tour dates, and exclusive TikTok Shop merch.
Notably, this merch is available solely to TikTok users in the U.S., and at the time of writing, the overarching SoundOn website appeared to be unchanged.
In other words, even if TikTok’s U.S. ban goes through – and the complex situation is, of course, still playing out – it’ll be interesting to see how exactly the episode affects SoundOn.
Unsurprisingly, though, TikTok opted to include a statement on the Walkerworld 2.0 undertaking from a London-based exec, and specifically SoundOn Europe, Middle East, and Africa head Nichal Sethi.
“We are incredibly excited to launch this groundbreaking campaign with Alan, an artist who truly understands the power of TikTok to build his career and engage with the global community,” Sethi relayed in part.
And in remarks of his own, Walker added in part: “TikTok is where creations meet and this resonates with the space that I have been creating with Walkerworld – creativity is a way of self-expression and it should be borderless.
“This also exemplifies the main message I want to convey through Walkerworld 2.0, which is ‘Create for Change’ – I started making music for fun in my bedroom and posting on social media 10 years ago with ‘Faded’ and that changed my life,” concluded Walker, who has 26.75 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Though the campaign’s precise commercial impact remains to be seen, the early results (and TikTok’s considerable promotional sway) are already apparent. Walker had 12.8 million TikTok followers at the time of the partnership’s initial announcement this past Friday; since then, the number has spiked to 13.3 million.