TikTok’s short-form videos have emerged as the advertising channel of choice for zoomers — those born between the mid-to-late 1990s and the early 2010s — ahead of Instagram and YouTube.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) tracks US consumer trends such as the rise of TikTok and livestreaming.
In a survey of 1000 US TikTok users about a year ago, the "digitally native" generation trusted influencers on TikTok the most.
B+LNZ says its short-form videos have captured the attention of young consumers, presenting an avenue for farmers to connect with the next generation.
Another opening is the rise in the US market of livestreaming — when streamed video is sent over the internet in real time so channel operators can chat and interact with their audience.
B+LNZ’s marketing team sees livestreaming providing a platform for sellers and producers to showcase their products, tell their stories and engage with a wider audience as consumers want to connect more with the origin of their products.
Global market intelligence and research manager Hugh Good said there was an opportunity to carry out TikTok and livestreaming promotion of red meat as there was little activity at this stage.
TikTok’s mainly young audience were the future boomers for red meat sales, so it was worth keeping an eye on emerging trends, he said.
Social media and social selling would probably end up on the same platform without separate apps for e-commerce or social media, he said.
The customers were on social media and live selling provided an immediate connection with them. Farmers could leverage technology to bridge the gap between their farms and the American consumer and promote their visual assets for social selling, positioning the brand and selling product, he said.
"We have such a great story to tell, but we need to develop the capabilities and embed the technologies to make this possible."
The livestreaming market is projected to reach $31.7billion by the end of the year, nearly tripling its size from 2021, and is expected to grow to $67.8b by 2026.
B+LNZ’s trend research has also found evidence that sustainability is now a driver for profitability in the consumer packaged goods space.
A McKinsey study looking at five years of US sales data among 44,000 brands ending mid-2022 included analysing 93 environmental social and governance claims, such as cage-free and eco-friendly.
The results showed products with these claims had an average growth of 28% and outperformed products without the claims, which only achieved 20% growth.
Mr Good said the major study proving that people were prepared to pay more for products labelled as sustainable was heartening for farmers.
"There’s actual evidence here that if you keep on doing the right thing and talk about the attributes of the product that people are getting more money from the market for it. That’s why I was excited about it because we want a really strong environmental premium because we are doing the [New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme] and NZFAP Plus and requiring more from farmers in terms of the environmental stuff and we want them to be paid more."
The study found products with vegan or carbon zero labels demonstrated an 8.5% advantage over counterparts without the claims. Products with more common claims such as sustainable packaging or plant-based showed a 4.7% advantage.
Mr Good said this showed differentiating a product’s unique attributes could pay off if buyers cared about them.
"We have tracked in the US and there’s a bit more focus on China at the moment of our customer base to understand what they care about. This study is giving us a guiding light and they haven’t overblown it and the differences aren’t huge, but it feels like there’s incremental gains in this."
