According to the report, 2 out of 3 TikTok users like when brands partner with a variety of creators
81% of users say TikTok has introduced them to new topics and trends they didn’t know they liked, building a globally connected, engaged community.
To equip marketers with deep insights into TikTok’s community’s evolving wants and needs, the platform issued its annual trend forecast – What’s Next 2025 Trend Report. It shows that in 2025, the TikTok community will unite to create unique, transformative, and year-defining content, reshaping how the industry thinks about ‘marketing’ and the future of business growth—a movement called Brand Chem.
The old playbook of brands telling consumers what they need is over. This new era calls for brands to join forces with creators and communities, working hand-in-hand to build content that resonates, drives impact, and ultimately redefines cultural relevance.
“In 2024, we saw brands push creative limits, lean into trends, and connect with their communities in powerful ways, but 2025 is set to take it even further,” said Shadi Kandil, General Manager, Global Business Solutions, Middle East, Turkey, Africa, Central and South Asia – TikTok. “The creative storytelling opportunities on TikTok are endless, and this year brands and creators will come together to continue shaping culture, sparking fresh ideas, and accelerating business growth by tapping directly into what matters to the TikTok community.”
This report focuses on the most impactful and sustainable trends, referred to as Trend Signals. The three key groups of Trend Signals:
Brand Fusion
Identity Osmosis
Creative Catalysts
Brand Fusion
A dynamic state where a brand gains renewed vigor, becoming more responsive and ready to build lasting bonds.
TikTok has become a go-to platform for trusted insights. Brands are discovering the value of collaborating with diverse creators, from low-key reviewers to dynamic personalities all thanks to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace. Instead of relying on a single creator, brands can now connect with their community at scale, reaching unique audiences and enabling authentic storytelling (1). In fact, 2 out of 3 TikTok users like when brands partner with a variety of creators. Adding custom codes and exclusive offers further amplifies this reach, allowing brands to create personalized connections while driving business results.
It’s not just about working with a variety of creators, but also ensuring brands allow those creators to show up authentically through their content.
In the region, Decathlon had successfully joined TikTok Creator Marketplace, allowing the brand to easily connect and collaborate with exercise enthusiasts on the platform. Through these collaborations, Decathlon authentically tapped into engaged communities, boosting their reach and building product awareness with sports lovers across UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar. Alongside the Creator Marketplace, the brand boosted its content on Spark Ads, driving further reach with content that felt authentic. With this, they achieved higher engagement with a lower cost, receiving a 71% increase in view-through rates, demonstrating the impact of selecting the right creators for relevant, genuine content.
Going beyond authentic content to building genuine rapport, brands must meet their communities where they are and share varied and unfiltered content such as street interviews, behind-the-scenes moments, or thoughtful insights. By doing so, brands can foster trust and community while encouraging audience engagement (2). 40% of TikTok users find brands that showcase personality more relevant, while 45% of social and video platform users feel brand relevance comes from feeling understood — emphasizing the importance of consistent, supportive, and joyful content. Through TikTok’s Creative Exchange, brands can strategically partner with creative experts across specialized niches, making their connections with audiences even more meaningful.
Identity Osmosis
Brands are organically integrating evolving consumer values, allowing these shifting ideals to reshape their identity.
TikTok communities are redefining representation by embracing diverse, authentic perspectives and celebrating niche viewpoints. By adapting to new trends and leaning into authentic perspectives, brands can connect on a deeper level with their communities, expanding reach and value (3). This open, empathetic exchange between brands, creators, and community is supported by features like TikTok Symphony Dubbing, which enables global brand communication in native languages, enhancing accessibility and emotional resonance. 81% of users say TikTok has introduced them to new topics and trends they didn’t know they liked, building a globally connected, engaged community.
The Michael Kors back-to-school campaign targeted students in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait, leveraging the TikTok Creator Marketplace to partner with local creators within travel, beauty, and lifestyle verticals. Creators personalized their content to showcase the products, emphasizing their versatility for students and teachers. A standout collaboration with @yaraaziz, 2024’s Creator of the Year, who engaged her 4.9 million followers with an interactive video helped the campaign achieve more than 58 million impressions and 8.3 million in reach.
TikTok is transforming conversations about life stages and identity. It’s changed the ideals around Girlhood from a once-narrow concept into a space of diverse narratives where women embrace TikTok’s femininomenon and listen to each other’s first-hand experiences. From affordable dupes to unboxing hauls, TikTok fosters a digital sisterhood in which 72% of women on TikTok feel it’s easy to connect and bond with new communities around shared life experiences on the platform. (5) This evolution is prompting brands to reconsider their messaging and enshrine female inclusivity, in part by leveraging amplifier communities like #WomeninSTEM, uniting women from tech sciences, on TikTok.
Other deeply personal topics that have been transformed by conversations on TikTok are personal finance and well-being. TikTok is redefining traditional milestones amid an era of economic change, spurring the community to be more interested in financial literacy. Conversations around student debt, mental health, and personal happiness reflect a shift toward valuing authentic, relatable experiences, with 50% of users on social/video platforms seeking content that mirrors their lives. (6) And brands can engage in those conversations, providing users with valuable advice.
Creative Catalysts
Untapped tools for marketers to ideate, build, learn, and take more exciting creative risks than ever before.
AI is becoming a source of excitement on TikTok, where users and brands explore its potential in everyday tasks like styling outfits, visualizing renovations, or writing scripts with Symphony Assistant. This playful, creative approach turns AI from a sci-fi concept into a practical, engaging tool for daily life, sparking curiosity and creativity. TikTok users are 1.4x more likely than users on other platforms to look forward to Generative AI in ads (7), highlighting this growing enthusiasm. With Symphony Assistant, brands can leverage real-time data on trending content and transform it into creative, ready-to-film concepts, making AI an integral part of TikTok’s vibrant, discovery-driven community.
As content demand rises, brands are shifting from short-lived marketing assets to multifaceted storytelling strategies. Formats such as Image Ads allow brands to quickly hop into trends and tell new stories by shaking up the format. This approach aligns with TikTok’s user base, where 76% of TikTok users enjoy seeing a mix of images and video (8), enabling brands to maintain relevance and continuously engage audiences. Real-time feedback in TikTok’s comment sections further enhances this strategy, allowing brands to innovate alongside consumers—with 68% of users saying brands should leverage comments to better understand their audience. (9)
A note on What’s Next Methodology
This report is heavily supported by data from the Global TikTok Marketing Science team gathered across multiple third-party commissioned research studies utilizing mixed methods approaches often including quantitative online surveys, exposure to stimuli in a mock TikTok environment, and/or advanced analytics. In this report, we’ve focused on studies from 2022 – 2024, which are most relevant and innovative, and speak to the larger trend forces at play in 2025.
