Chicago Bulls fans will now be able to find branded content from their favorite team on the popular social media app Tik Tok.
The well-known social media app Tik Tok really caught within the last year with the younger generation. Tik Tok is a blend of what another social media app Vine used to be. The short videos also present competition to Instagram’s video platform and Snapchat. And with its recent rise in popularity, the Chicago Bulls marketing team decided to jump on a business partnership opportunity with them.
Although the Bulls are struggling on the court this season under head coach Jim Boylen, with a bad 21-40 record through their first 61 games, the marketing team still was able to capitalize on the brand name and recognition of the franchise. The Bulls were recently graded out by Forbes as the fourth most valuable franchise in the NBA in 2020.
There’s definitely a lot to work with in terms of the global recognition and marketability of that infamous Bulls logo. Design Hill actually ranked the Bulls logo as the eighth most talked about and best designed in all of sports, back in 2017.
All of these factors coming together meant that the Bulls were a good candidate to become the first professional sports franchise to release branded content on a form of social media that is getting as popular worldwide as Tik Tok. FOS (frntofficesport.com) was the first to report the partnership between the Bulls and Tik Tok in terms of branded content. Here’s some of the more pertinent information from that report.
"Partnering with Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank, the Bulls engaged in choreographing and creating dance challenges for fans to participate. It also produced and created original audio and music for each post. On the music side, the Bulls worked with Hawaii-based group Young Black Kings to develop and produce original songs for the branded content series.The Bulls rolled out its BMO Harris branded content on January 12. The video featured Benny unveiling the Benny Dance Challenge with the #BullsBMOChallenge and #ad hashtags accompanying it. As of March 2, the video has generated more than 1.2 million views, 170,200 likes, and 520 comments. The 16.27-second-long video has also been shared more than 6,000 times and seen a completion rate of 86%."
And here is the first video that the Bulls rolled out on Tik Tok back on Jan. 12 of this year.
This is cool news for the Bulls and their social media/marketing teams. If only the Bulls could parlay all this marketing success that they find off the court, thanks purely to the name brand recognition of the organization, into success on the hardwood.
This is really something that the Reinsdorfs have become famous for as the Bulls owners. They tend to care more about the bottom line profit the franchise is making instead of putting a marketable product out on the floor game in and game out during this rebuild.