Swipe, Spin, Share: TikTok’s Experiential Win
this is Tik Tok
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Making a Social App Social: TikTok’s Student Strategy with BAM
In 2018, as TikTok prepared to enter the UK market, they partnered with BAM to introduce the app to students in a way that felt as exciting and immersive as the content on the platform itself. The brief was bold: deliver a multi-university experiential campaign targeting creative students and performance-based faculties, with two core objectives—increase brand awareness and drive user acquisition. With Gen Z already known for being digital-first and socially driven, the activation had to feel organic, hype-fuelled, and totally on-brand.
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From Big Names to Big Moments: TikTok’s Experiential Takeover
BAM activated the campaign across five top London universities, tapping into each campus’s social influencers—the so-called BNOCs (Big Names On Campus)—to promote the upcoming events. Onsite, students were met with everything from candyfloss machines and photo booths to giant iTabs loaded with the TikTok app, and a DJ spinning nostalgic hits on “TikTok FM”. The atmosphere was electric. Real-time content creation was encouraged, and BAM integrated push notifications to alert attendees and track engagement—with an impressive 78% open rate.
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Measurable Impact Through Creative Immersion
The campaign didn’t just make noise—it delivered numbers. A post-event survey of 1,000 students revealed a clear lift in brand performance. Awareness of TikTok jumped from 40.8% to 44.1%, while active usage nearly tripled from 4.7% to 13.9%. These gains demonstrated just how powerful experiential activations and peer-to-peer recommendations can be in a student marketing setting. TikTok proved it could be more than just a download—it could be a part of student culture.
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Digital, Physical, and Social—Perfectly Aligned
From pre-event surveys and influencer partnerships to on-site engagement and digital media integration, BAM built a campaign that connected every touchpoint. With 664 hours of staff time across 83 shifts, this was a full-scale operation—one that blended physical presence with digital strategy for maximum reach. TikTok didn’t just introduce itself to UK students—it gave them something to talk about, and most importantly, something to share.
