Best use of TikTok in Social Media - Shorty Awards

13th Annual Shorty Awards Categories

The Shorty Awards honor the talented agencies, brands, and industry leaders behind the best and most innovative work on social media and digital channels, campaigns, websites and applications.

Best use of TikTok

This award honors the most effective and creative campaigns optimized for TikTok. Describe how you integrated TikTok into your campaign, how it enhanced your message and met or exceeded your goals and objectives.

See previous year winners and honorees here.

Build brand awareness and equity for Chinese brand Midea by turning the U.S. launch of their innovative new window air conditioner, Midea U, into a viral social moment. With a small budget and minimal existing social presence, help the brand stand out as much as its unique product.

#BestThingSince

In 2020, America’s most famous carryout-only pizza brand, known for their delightfully wacky commercials, tasked us with announcing their biggest news ever on the biggest stage ever. So during the third quarter of “the professional football championship game,” we told millions around the world — Little Caesars was grabbing a slice of the delivery pie. Li…

#SavageChallenge

Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” was released March 6, 2020, alongside her Suga EP and quickly became the fan-favorite. That same day, Megan posted a TikTok of herself sporting different outfits that reflected “Savage”’s punchy chorus, “Classy, Bougie, Ratchet.” Initially, the plan was to push this outfit-change concept to the masses through a viral Influence…

#TexansHelpingTexans

H-E-B was facing down a global pandemic in early March and April. They knew, as a corporate citizen, that their role was much more than a grocery store - H-E-B has been a cornerstone of Texas culture since 1905 when they opened their first grocery store. It was too early to know the devastation of COVID-19, but H-E-B was seeing in its stores in early Ma…

2020 Billboard Music Awards TikTok Vote

For decades, the Billboard Music Awards (BBMA) has recognized and honored music’s most popular artists of the year. Though the majority of the show’s awards are determined based on charts and performance data, a few exceptions are made for fan-voted awards. These awards celebrate and harness fan power by allowing the fans to actively select the winners by …

Beats by Dr. Dre Taps Into The Sound of Colour

Founded in 2006, Beats by Dr. Dre quickly became the world’s most popular headphones brand by partnering with a number of iconic celebrity endorsers. But by 2020, the brand’s playbook needed to adapt to connect with a younger generation that was finding entertainment outside of mainstream media. Many Gen Zers were introduced to the Dr. Dre brand through …

Bomb Pop is Not One Thing

Tweens (aged 9 – 14) are the most diverse, multi-faceted, culturally agile, and relentlessly creative cohort in US history. They have wide interests and consume diverse content. They are inherently curious, forever exploring the depths of their own identity and discovering the world around them. Most Tweens and their parents know Bomb Pop as the seasonal su…

Bugles - Crunch it

The objective of the campaign was to reintroduce the Bugles brand to Gen-Z, a generation that did not share the millennial sentiment and appreciation for Bugles products. With a new face and packaging, we looked to TikTok as our primary platform for increasing brand awareness, driving sales and growing market share, all while generating brand-love and loyal…

Cheerios Won the Hearts of TikTok in 2020

Cheerios didn’t have plans to join TikTok in 2020, much less launch a campaign, but a viral video from one person on TikTok changed everything. On November 11th, Cori Spruiell shared a TikTok video asking Cheerios to recreate the beloved 1999 commercial, which featured a grandma and baby bonding over Cheerios at Christmas, but make it from a 2020 pe…

Cheetos “Can’t Touch This” TikTok Take Over

To announce its newest Popcorn innovation, Cheetos took to the largest stage, the Super Bowl. Inspired by the MC Hammer classic hit “Can’t Touch This”, the brand highlighted how Cheetle dusted fingers (the powdery residue that gets on your fingertips while eating the savory cheese snack, Cheetos®) can get someone out of just about anything, from helping fri…

Discovery’s Shark Week TikTok Livestream Series

The goal for this campaign was to bring the iconic tentpole event to TikTok’s diverse and younger audience. The livestream tool was the perfect means to educate and inspire viewers about the importance of shark conservation in a real-time format.

Flighthouse x DJ Chose TikTok Marketing Campaign

DJ Chose is a Hip Hop producer signed to Flighthouse’s parent company, Create Music Group. Instead of producing for someone else, he wanted to release his own track. He created the song THICK, and utilized Flighthouse Media for a marketing campaign. They specifically focused on TikTok, knowing how big of an impact the app has on music streams and sales. The…

With families spending more time at home and online, the threat of online child exploitation is more urgent than ever.

Lysol #HealthyHabits6Step

In 2020, there was no shortage of information about COVID-19, but there was one big problem: it wasn’t spreading as fast as the virus. We were all just too distracted. And, the information wasn’t designed to change behavior. (Scientifically speaking). At Lysol, it’s our mission to protect families from germs. So, we turned information into life-savi…

MTV's #MyCrib Challenge

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit our country and people were spending more time than ever in their homes, we noticed a trend emerge on TikTok, where creators were giving quarantine tours of their homes, and that Cribs was starting to organically be used in social conversation. And since Cribs is practically synonymous with MTV, we knew this was a moment for o…

To raise awareness for the About Time exhibition at the Met Museum, Vogue's TikTok brought audiences inside the exhibit to learn more about the history of fashion. We then created a dedicated hashtag, #MakeItVogue, that invited TikTok creators to create their own, DIY 19th-century inspired look at home (using some everyday materials).

McDonald's #HereForRMHC

#HereForRMHC was designed to engage consumers in McDonald’s purpose, with the following objectives: Raise awareness and understanding of the Ronald McDonald House Charities® (RMHC®) mission Drive engagement around McDonald’s support of RMHC and amplify the impact of McDonald’s $100 million commitment

Nickelodeon's The Astronauts TikTok Campaign

OPPO - FameOPPOrtunity

Resonating with our region’s young, hyper-connected and socially savvy audience isn’t easy, especially when you are introducing a brand new product series such as Reno4 to the Middle Eastern market, which stands for: Technology, Fashion & Creativity, which can mean different things amongst cultures and subcultures across the globe. Our objective was …

PERFECT MARC JACOBS #PerfectAsIAm Global TikTok Hashtag Challenge

PERFECT MARC JACOBS, the newest fragrance from Marc Jacobs Fragrances, is a celebration of self-love, originality, and you – inspired by Marc Jacobs’ personal mantra: “I am perfect as I am,” which is symbolized by a tattoo of the word “PERFECT” on his wrist. The concept, which supports the belief and positive affirmation that everyone is perfect in their ow…

TikTok Gloss Invasion

To acquire new fans to lovers of gloss by introducing an exciting new gloss formula, Gloss Bomb Cream, to Gen-Z in a fun and catchy way.

Leading up to the 2020 Super Bowl, Chipotle had a challenge: drive in-app sales and digital ordering on one of the busiest food delivery days of the year. The solution: forgo traditional advertising and tackle the second screen through a real-time influencer campaign targeted to Gen-Z called TikTok Timeout.

Trolls World Tour 2020: TikTok Social Media Campaign

As the pandemic began to spread and force movie theaters everywhere to shut down, Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour made movie history as the first feature ever to be released on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) right out of the gate. This bold move completely upended the traditional windowing model and set the industry on a record-breaki…

TurboTax #W2Step TikTok Hashtag Challenge

The Super Bowl is a key moment in time for Intuit TurboTax, as it takes place during a critical moment in tax season. In 2020, Intuit TurboTax executed a cross-channel campaign to amplify and drive engagement around the brand’s Super Bowl commercial, which highlighted TurboTax’s brand value with an engaging music video with a catchy song and simple dance th…

Walmart Holiday Shop-A-Long

In 2020, our customers needed joy. As December rolled around, we decided to end the year with something innovative, surprising and even a little silly. Something to make people smile. What were we doing when we couldn’t do the things that usually bring joy, like shopping, going dancing, or hanging out with loved ones? Your kids, your mom, your boss, y…

Xbox Joins TikTok

2020 was a huge year for gaming, and not just because more people were staying at home. It was a year that saw the launch of the next generation of video game consoles: Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PlayStation 5. To gain the edge with Gen Z, we knew we needed to not only break through the noise, but show up in a way that our competitors would never…

truth® This is Quitting

We are truth®. We’ve been fighting against youth smoking since 2001. But seemingly overnight, a new enemy took young people by storm: vaping. With the public health community caught off guard by vaping, there were few resources to help young people quit. So we created our own text-to-quit program: This is Quitting (TiQ). It quickly became clear tha…

About the Shorty Awards

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media.

Millions of people participate in The Shortys to recognize individuals and organizations producing great content on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, Snapchat, and the rest of the social web.

shorty awards finalists will be announced in mid-march!