A Wonderful Retelling Brand Campaign: TikTok Creator-Led Extensions

Platform: TikTok
Project: Creator Advertising
Assignment: Campaign Strategy & Test Design, Creator Management, Brand Awareness, Creative Sequencing

Role and Objective

I led end-to-end creator strategy and execution for the TikTok extension of Zapier’s H2 2025 brand campaign, owning creator briefing, selection, communication, and performance-driven feedback. The objective was to reinforce brand messaging around adaptability and relevance through authentic creator narratives, while testing how creator-led formats could complement hero brand assets across reach, Top Feed, and direct-response placements.

Campaign Strategy

Creator content was used as a brand amplifier, not a replacement for hero creative. We focused on creators who could credibly speak to modern work, productivity, and business complexity—bringing Zapier’s enterprise evolution to life in a way that felt native, human, and culturally fluent on TikTok.

Creators were deployed across multiple objectives:

  • Reach & Top Feed to maximize attention and brand recall

  • Direct Response to test whether brand-aligned creator narratives could hold performance even in lower-funnel environments

Execution

  • Selected and briefed creators aligned to productivity, business, and tech-adjacent audiences

  • Guided creators on narrative structure to balance authentic voice with brand positioning

  • Managed iterative feedback loops to optimize hook strength, retention, and clarity

  • Deployed creator assets across Reach, Top Feed, and DR campaigns to evaluate performance by placement and objective

Results & Performance Impact

  • Successfully extended brand campaign messaging into creator-led formats without diluting enterprise positioning

  • Creator videos delivered strong attention signals across Reach and Top Feed, with select creators driving standout CTR, VTR, and retention

  • Validated creator-led brand extensions as an effective complement to hero brand creative

  • Generated clear learnings around narrative pacing, creator fit, and placement-specific performance

  • Established a repeatable framework for integrating creators into future brand campaigns

Key Learnings

  • Creator-led storytelling can humanize enterprise positioning when paired with clear narrative guidance

  • Creators with strong scroll-stopping hooks and credible work-context framing consistently outperformed

  • Early clarity in messaging and structure is critical when extending brand campaigns into creator formats

Core Brand Creative (Context)

marketingEricke Tanmedia buying, advertising strategy, sem