More than tripling in brand value over the past year, TikTok/Douyin (brand value up 215% to US$59.0 billion) is the world’s fastest-growing brand. With an astounding 215% growth, the entertainment app’s brand value has increased from US$18.7 billion in 2021 to US$59.0 billion this year. Now the 7th most valuable Chinese brand, TikTok/Douyin has become a household name globally.

TikTok/Douyin has been particularly successful in growing a valuable brand in a world affected by COVID-19 restrictions across the world, with the brand focused on entertaining users on their mobile devices. With different national policies on mitigating the risk of COVID-19 being timed differently in different jurisdictions, TikTok/Douyin has grown in popularity this year for entertainment as well as monetising user content with brand partnerships. A wide variety of consumer brands are including TikTok in their marketing spend, creating a new medium of advertising and selling via influencer marketing.

While traditional media companies produce or license content for distribution, modern social media outlets are benefitting from huge volumes of user-generated content. In recent years, social media channels such as Instagram have revised their product to encourage more content creation – and in doing so, building very strong brand attachments amongst users who are increasingly self-identifying as part of the social media brands.