Guest Bio:
Oli Hills is the founder of Nonsensical, one of the first TikTok Shop agencies in the UK. He has been working with Social Media and Social Commerce for years and in 2020 brought that knowledge into the TikTok boom, helping brands to grow their accounts to 1+ Million followers.
Summary:
In this conversation, Oli Hills discusses the evolving landscape of TikTok Shop, particularly during the Black Friday season. He emphasizes the importance of balancing profitability with brand awareness and the unique opportunities TikTok offers for discovery and engagement. The discussion covers strategies for brands to stand out, the role of influencers and affiliates, and the challenges of live shopping. Hills also explores the impact of AI on content creation and the need for brands to adapt to the changing dynamics of social commerce.
Takeaways:
- Black Friday has become a month-long event, impacting profitability.
- Brands must balance discounts with long-term brand health.
- TikTok Shop offers unique opportunities for brand awareness beyond GMV.
- The platform’s discovery element is crucial for unexpected sales.
- Brands need to be brave and embrace user-generated content.
- Affiliate marketing can provide significant free reach for brands.
- Strategic planning is essential for successful TikTok Shop campaigns.
- Live shopping is evolving, but daily streams may not be sustainable.
- Community building among affiliates is key for brand success.
- AI can enhance content creation but quality must remain a priority.
Full Transcript:
Moritz Schröder (00:01.826)
Oli, you’re running a large TikTok shop agency in the UK. Black Friday is just over. Can you tell us how did it go? Did it exceed your expectations?
Oli Hills (00:14.549)
yeah, it’s always, it’s always crazy town. Isn’t it? Black Friday. is, it is relentless. Well, I mean, it’s literally the whole month of November now. It’s not just one day or four days anymore. The brands are, yeah, having to discount for much longer periods. yeah, TikTok shop in particular for Black Friday, it’s just growing year on year. It’s incredible how quickly it’s, exponentially growing.
So yeah, some of the clients we worked with did incredibly well. There’s always the challenge around profitability around Black Friday and what’s kind of one, the purpose of it and two, should you even get involved? Is it a good look for your brand, et cetera, et cetera? But for the ones who went all in, yeah, they did a real good job.
Moritz Schröder (00:58.254)
I would imagine that it’s exceedingly hard to stand out on TikTok shop with events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, particularly maybe with live shopping where it’s always about discounts and getting a good deal already throughout the entire year. And then something like Black Friday comes around that prides themselves in making things even cheaper. How did you advise your brands and the companies you work with to stand out during this month?
Oli Hills (01:27.871)
Yeah, think, well, I mean, first and foremost, it’s about what’s the goal. So you can go into Black Friday and say, actually, we’re just going to use this Black Friday purely for brand awareness. We are just going to go all out. Even if we break even, we’re happy. We just want our brand literally everywhere. Or you’ve got to go into it and say, no, we still need this to be profitable. Therefore, we can’t be
silly with regards to the offers, the discounts, the incentives that we put in front of our potential customers. How is that going to impact new customers, existing customers? So there’s a lot of considerations now that go into it. You do see a lot of brands not opt for Black Friday at all, particularly independent brands who kind of want to steer clear of it. And I think a lot of the
Big players are just incredibly frustrated by the whole thing that they basically lose a whole month of the trading year to heavy, heavy discounting. Cause if they don’t, then the competitors are potentially going to hoover up, but what’s the long-term impact of that for, for the brand. So we work really closely with them. We always start with what’s a win. What’s the goal that we were trying to achieve here and then build incentives, discounts, products, bundles, or whatever, aligned with, with what they’re trying to achieve in the end. Cause yeah, we can all.
celebrate high revenue number, but if it’s not impacting the bottom line, really, what’s the point?
Moritz Schröder (02:50.881)
Yeah, I think that’s one of the benefits actually of doing TikTok shop or TikTok in general, that you’re able to focus on other metrics besides just GMV and turnover. I used to work on the e-commerce side. I was working for Klarna, a sub-payment company and there it’s all about the GMV, right? It’s all about the turnover. There’s no such thing as like brand awareness that you’re creating if you’re doing payments.
So with TikTok, it’s great that you can push other metrics.
Oli Hills (03:19.487)
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, it’s just more payments are better, right? For Klana. But yeah, I think TikTok is an interesting one. Obviously, you’ve done lot of podcasts about this and how it’s the first platform really to combine content and commerce together. So you often find a lot of companies come to TikTok shop and don’t even think about the other benefits. Like if you can get, I don’t know.
two, three, 4,000 samples sent out to affiliates. They’re each posting and each getting 5,000 views. You’ve got an unbelievable amount of awareness through third parties talking about your products. Now I know affiliate content is not always the best and probably not the best representation of your brand sometimes, but it’s essentially someone actively and proactively talking about your product or your bundle or your brand more broadly, essentially for free.
And those wider benefits I think are always probably under talked about or under appreciated somewhat everyone just looks about the GMV figures, but T-Torch is so much bigger than that.
Moritz Schröder (04:28.982)
Do you feel like brands are starting to pick up on that? mean, UK is one of the most mature TikTok shop markets in the West at least. I would think that you’re a little bit ahead when it comes to these kinds of realizations that just do take their time, right? Or do you still have to educate each and every new client that you onboard with your agency that this is actually more than just a sales revenue generating pillar?
Oli Hills (04:58.495)
Yeah, yeah. mean, some brands get it without needing to explain others. The biggest problem you’ve got is that the control is completely out of your hands on TikTok. And when would a brand ever want the control to be taken away from them? So you can either go, as we know, TikTok is a numbers game.
Everything is numbers. want as much content as possible because that’s what gets your GMV max campaigns working. That means a ton of affiliates. That means a ton of creative. So if you’re working just from an affiliate perspective, then the reality is there’s a lot of affiliates that may not be brand safe. They may not create content in a way that you would aesthetically approve normally. But this is where I think the biggest word on TikTok is bravery.
You got as a brand to go and take a shot. You have to be really brave. You have to commit to knowing some content will go live that it’s, it’s not going to be what you’d expect. Normally it’s not going to be to the standard of your own creative or a really polished piece of content that an influencer does. It’s just not that. So some brands get it. Others need a little bit of gentle persuasion and pointing in the right direction. But, then it comes to actually what, what is the
opportunity I have for sampling. We work with some clients, their average order value and product price is 120 quid. So it’s not sending out one pound 50 samples, it’s 30, 40 quid cost of goods sold. So there’s a bit more of a consideration for those types of brands as well. So yeah, it’s it’s very unique. think every brand comes to the platform slightly differently. But yeah, I’d say they’re, they’re slowly getting their head around the fact that
you do get an unbelievable volume of free reach if you’re willing and able to go all in.
Moritz Schröder (06:50.195)
Right. You just said TikTok shop is a numbers game. Since Black Friday just came and went, do you know anything about the numbers that were accomplished in the UK as a whole? TikTok share anything with agencies like yours or is it too soon to tell? What was your impression? Do you think it’s still growing like it did at the very early days or is it saturating a little bit?
Oli Hills (07:15.391)
Yeah, I mean, probably too early to tell. I’ve not seen anything come through and we’re in chats with a lot of the TikTok team, but yeah, not seeing anything come through. For me, the platform is just much more established. So therefore, people go into TikTok because they know there’s going to be…
deals like there are on other platforms and go into brands direct. So it’s just part of the, I guess, the buying cycle and buying habit for a lot of people nowadays. The other thing of course, is that where TikTok gets you is that I may just be watching Netflix and scrolling along. And I never knew I needed that product or bundle or whatever, but it’s randomly appeared on my feed or now in a live stream. So it’s that discovery element.
So that’s where I think TikTok Shop has the biggest benefit because if I need, no, I need a new toothbrush or a new headphones or stuff. I’ll probably just wait and go on Amazon and book direct, right? But I didn’t know that I needed XYZ products that’s just randomly appeared on my feed while I’m scrolling innocently trying to get away from the Black Friday deal. So it just sucks you in in a slightly different way. And that’s where
You almost just have to be present on the platform in order to capitalize on, those. Yeah. Unexpected sales where your product just randomly appears and just thought, Oh my God, this is too good to miss. I’ve got to get it right here right now. And that’s where tick tock always wins. think.
Moritz Schröder (08:49.66)
As consumer I guess it also catches you in moments where you don’t have your guards up, right? As you said you’re lying on the couch watching Netflix and you think you escaped all the Black Friday Cyber Monday craze and then it pops up and you’re like hmm that’s actually a pretty good deal and a pretty solid product. I might as well buy it.
Oli Hills (09:06.901)
Yeah, absolutely. And again, you say what you want about affiliates, but these guys know how to sell. They are just unbelievably good at saying and showing the product in real time. And I think that’s one of the biggest things that you’ve got is affiliates just know how to create and produce content, which really solves a problem.
because they can show you the product being used in real time in their own house rather than, I mean, you go on any TV commercial production for a brand, you’ve got the most fake actors, you’ve got this, that, and the other, and it’s all too polished. They don’t really understand their customer, whereas…
someone at home just saying, my God, this is the best thing ever. I use it like this. And you’re like, I need that. And I never knew I did. And that’s why I love it. It’s so unbelievably good. You just have to trust. You have to trust the platform.
Moritz Schröder (09:56.666)
You
Moritz Schröder (10:04.777)
And there’s such a good system of pre-selection happening as well, where the content that you’re seeing in the end that is trying to sell you something you didn’t know you needed or existed, most likely is already reaching so many views and likes because it’s a good piece of content. It resonates with the audience, Whereas the affiliate content that doesn’t do well, it just dies almost instantly. So there’s this
Oli Hills (10:26.862)
Exactly.
Moritz Schröder (10:28.435)
great filter that is happening and what you end up seeing is most likely really dialed in to convert compared to an ad that you see on your TV where they might have screen tested it with a small sample size, but it doesn’t really represent you. The algorithm that you have on your phone knows you way better than any TV commercial ever could.
Oli Hills (10:49.518)
Yeah, it’s just unbelievable. mean, I bought some new running shorts. I bought some new weights and like I said, I never knew I needed them, but the content was just like, oh yeah, that’s compact. So it’ll fit my new flat, et cetera. Next thing you know, you’ve got it being delivered the next day. It’s quite extraordinary.
That’s where brands have to go all in. have to commit to it. If they’re going to go on TikTok shop, they have to understand that’s how it works. And they just struggle to get their head around it. Cause like I said, they’ve always been in such complete control over everything they’ve done. Whereas TikTok kind of takes that away from a little bit.
Moritz Schröder (11:27.048)
Yeah, I can imagine that it’s hard to let go for a lot of brands, but that also serves as a filter I feel where the brands that deep down inside maybe know that their product is not really…
up to par with their competition out there. It might be cheaper, it might be worse quality. They are probably the ones that are not as inclined to go all in and send out thousands of samples to affiliate creators that then might bad mouth the company or create content that does not resonate with their audience. I think the ones that do send out samples and go all in on TikTok shop most likely are really convinced of their product and know that they have something on their hands that will do well.
Oli Hills (12:06.67)
Exactly. And I think the big thing, of course, is everyone just thinks it’s a discount platform. And that scares a lot of brands away, which I totally get and kind of makes sense. I always say if you have got any wiggle room in terms of margins, then it’s a good way of incentivizing people by there and then because like I said, the content just randomly appeared on their feet, right?
I think that the status that people will spend an average of 94 minutes per day on TikTok. So if you’re scrolling for 94 minutes on average, how much content you actually see? So I’m in my flow. The next video could be an absolute belt or it could be an AI baby reading the news. It could be a dog video. It could be anything. I got no idea, but I’m in. an affiliate video pops up or a brand video. What’s going to make me buy?
Moritz Schröder (12:40.678)
wild.
Oli Hills (13:02.526)
there and then. an incentive is obviously really helpful, whether that’s free shipping, gift with purchase, a discount, but where I’m seeing a lot of success is some sort of TikTok exclusive. Because if I know that I can’t get that product or bundle or something anywhere else, I have to get it then. Because one, I don’t know how long that bundle is going to be around for. And I know I can’t just go straight on their website or to Amazon or whatever to get it. So the more that you can
curate your product listing the way you can curate your bundles and something that is exclusive to TikTok, whether it’s a, an exclusive launch before it goes to mass market. That’s what’s going to really succeed. We had one brand that launched a particular product skew exclusively on TikTok for a month before it went anywhere, anywhere else. And it’s done seven figures. It’s unbelievable.
Moritz Schröder (13:57.382)
Wow. Did they also design the product to go viral on TikTok? Like was that a consideration for them when creating that product or was it more that they said, okay, we’re going to hold back with that product from all of our other sales channels and first let it hit TikTok. How much of it was really dialed into TikTok as a sales channel and how much of it was just the timing that they try to adjust.
Oli Hills (14:22.806)
Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit of both. think it was good timing that you started to see search and trend volume increase as they were about to launch. You’re like, okay, here we go. There’s an opportunity here. the way they, I guess, curated the launch was really good. So we activated influencers. With influencers, obviously we can sign off content. So we got the influencers to go live with the messaging that we really wanted them to go live with.
We then use that influencer content to educate and train affiliates to be like, by the way, this is how you describe this product. Cause I can’t sign off affiliate content. So I can sign off influencer content cause I’m paying for it. So you use that kind of knowledge, that briefing, that sign off, and then use that content that’s been approved to then educate affiliates. And we do, we do a load of like,
webinar training sessions for affiliates. have product guides. do a lot of work in terms of nurturing them. And it was just, yeah, great products, exclusive to the platform, great education of affiliates and volume of samples. And yeah, just, just went absolutely off. So I think you can, you can curate an element of virality on the platform. the big thing of course is just, you, you got to have all these levers that you can pull and you need the effort in order to do it. think TikTok shop.
is a much more difficult platform to get right because there’s so many levers that you can pull and a lot of companies that come onto TikTok is they’re very good selling on Amazon. Now Amazon is really easy, you just find what’s the best selling product, you optimize your listing accordingly and you put a load of media spend behind it so you’re the sponsored product when someone’s searching. It’s not hard. Whereas TikTok, I’ve got to do all of that and I’ve got to get the content right.
and the volume of content right for that to be able to work as well. it’s those two working in Tando, I think is always the challenge.
Moritz Schröder (16:21.284)
Yeah. Looking back now, at a time before TikTok shop and before social commerce, seems so easy the way.
eCommerce was done. I you had some meta ads and you had some Amazon, maybe Google ads. And that was pretty much it, right? Then you had your Shopify web store and you’re off to the races. And now there’s like live shopping and you’ve got to have your content creators and then you do some influencers and then you have to figure out GMV max. You need to have an agency that knows what they’re doing. As you said, there are so many different levers. And for me, that’s what excites me about it. I think it’s fascinating and super
Oli Hills (16:39.822)
You’re right.
Moritz Schröder (16:58.407)
that all of this exists at the same time it makes it so much harder.
Oli Hills (17:02.88)
So much harder. And the big thing is the P word, right? Gotta make it profitable. It’s gotta work. It’s gotta actually drive business growth. And you see a lot of companies on TikTok shop that do the most ridiculous discounts, don’t make any money. So what’s the longevity for a lot of those brands is what I always kind of think about. So you’ve gotta go into it really commercially minded. You’ve gotta understand that it is gonna cost a little bit
bit more because I do need to invest in creative to make it work. I’ve got affiliate commission. I’ve got GMV max media spend. I’ve got samples, not least your shipping costs and cost of goods sold potential discounts. Like there’s a lot of stuff chomping at the bit of your bottom line. So being really strategic and saying, actually, yeah, it’s these particular products that are going to work on the platform because they are inherently interesting to create content about.
That’s always the first and foremost. They’ve got to be something that people want to create content about and work on the platform to make me want to convert. But it’s everything else on there that is eating into your margin. And you’ve got to make sure that we, we, we can become or create a profitable channel. think there’s, it’s always, always takes time to talk shop. A lot of brands see these amazing case studies of
products doing unbelievably well on the platform and they think, I can get that overnight because there is the opportunity that you potentially could if a product just goes viral on one video. But there’s a lot of work that gets you for sustainable growth and profitable growth over the long run. And that’s where a lot of companies need to come into TikTok shop knowing and understanding that.
Moritz Schröder (18:47.693)
If we look a little bit at the agency side of things, how do you help brands with Nonsensical to figure all of this out and navigate those difficult waters of social commerce? How much of the work that you just described with working with the creators, doing live selling, doing the sample sending, how much of that work do you do for your brands and how much do they actually have to do on their own?
Oli Hills (19:13.006)
Yeah, it’s a good question. mean, essentially, we can do everything from product up list, product list uploads to pricing updates to live streams. I mean, the only thing we can’t do really is fulfillment, but that’s where FBT comes in and happy days. think the big thing, of course, is starting off on the right foot. So a lot of the work that we do with brands is actually in the strategy upfront.
It’s actually working out what is the right product mix pricing proposition that works. What’s the right sample volumes? What’s the right product? Like actually doing that deep work right at the start. I mean, we just delivered a, TikTok shop strategy that included everything. I think it was about 250 slides long. It was unbelievable because of how much stuff you have to think about when it goes into, into the platform, because you’ve got
operations, logistics, customer service, pricing, promotions, content, influencers, like it’s, it’s astronomical. So we always try and start well.
there at the outset. And then ultimately it’s what the brand has internally in terms of resource. Some like to do customer service, someone outsource it. Some are happy for us to go and approve all affiliates and manage all coms. Some want to be involved in that process. So yeah, it’s just a two way street. The big thing where I think agencies will struggle because I still can’t get the unit economics to work is on daily lives.
I think if you as a brand want to go live every single day, it makes more sense to recruit internally.
Moritz Schröder (21:02.443)
Right. And how much of that is already happening with brands? I would think that live shopping is still in its infancy, even in a mature market like the UK. So very few brands will actually have the staff to do all of that in-house, let alone the skillset. Do you then approach them and say, Hey, sorry, we can’t do it for you, at least not every single day, but we can recommend you this person or that person who is experienced. How do you go about that?
Oli Hills (21:31.67)
Yeah, so I mean, we can we have a studio setup where we can do lives all day every day. It just is.
I believe prohibitively expensive bearing in mind what the majority of live streams actually generate in terms of GMV currently. I think it will go up and it will continue to boom. So the way we work with brands is we’ll say, well, we will do them for you while we create a team internally for you. So we will do all of the training. can do interviews. can…
work with them on set design, studio setup, equipment. So we’re almost like a consultant basically that helps them get set up. The problem I have with daily live streams is if I know as a consumer that you’re going to be live at five till eight and I know for a fact you’re going to have a discount because that’s what you do, why would I buy any other time?
Moritz Schröder (22:10.399)
Mm-hmm.
Moritz Schröder (22:27.669)
you
Oli Hills (22:28.674)
So I see an affiliate come on my feed and I’m like, well, I’m not going to, I know they’re going to be live later and there’ll be a better deal. So it almost just counteractively ruins the rest of your shop. think lives are there for huge hero moments, mega exclusives, unbelievable discounts, new product launch, all of these things that just inherently
Moritz Schröder (22:36.012)
Right.
Oli Hills (22:57.282)
give you a reason to stay online for four, six, eight, 12 hours. And you are just pumping the same message. It’s exclusive. They happen maybe once or twice a month. You can get really excited about it. You could potentially bring in a slightly bigger creator to be your presenter and host. You can have guests like you can do a whole set design around the theme and make it a real big thing.
And then potentially, if you wanted to supplement that with lives throughout the week, then all you need is a mobile phone and a person who can talk for two hours. So there’s that I think that’s where that’s where there’s a kind of a key difference for me in terms of the purpose, I guess, for lives that don’t impact the rest of your store.
Moritz Schröder (23:37.217)
Right.
Oli Hills (23:50.862)
Because yeah, if you get an agency to run a live, you need camera operator, moderator, presenters. You got to hire a studio or book out your own studio. And I mean, the average GMV is $800 an hour or something. Good.
Moritz Schröder (24:07.126)
Yeah, it’s definitely pricey to go all in on live selling, especially now that adoption is picking up, but it’s not anywhere close to what we see in Asia. So you just don’t have that hourly turnover that would justify such a large production on any given weekday.
Oli Hills (24:24.514)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (24:26.039)
I think it makes a lot of sense what you’re saying that as a brand, you kind of want to think about your overarching strategy and then use that as one piece of the puzzle to build up some hype and maybe have a massive launch of a product or a new category or whatever it might be. Black Friday, obviously events like that. makes sense, but to do it every single day. I think it also.
to some extent gets repetitive, right? There’s only a limited amount of customers that any brand have. For some, the pool is bigger, for some, the pool is smaller, but there is a limit and it’s not like you attract new customers every single day. So I would imagine if you do it 365 days of the year, it tends to decline in audience.
Oli Hills (25:06.062)
What can you talk about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think there’s, imagine football clubs, right? Football clubs doing their new kit release. That would be a huge moment. Or you’re a fashion brand doing your latest collection reveal. Like these moments where people are waiting for these and you can do something really quite epic. You can make a huge moment of it.
Moritz Schröder (25:15.542)
Right.
Moritz Schröder (25:23.796)
Yeah, if you have a big drop.
Oli Hills (25:31.726)
And normally I’d be like, Oh, I’ve just seen they’ve they’ve released a new care. I’ll have to go down the shot. can buy it there and then like that for me is really impactful and really exciting. just, unless I would say you are a heavy discount brand where you can get your average order value to about 20, 25 quid.
then you could probably go live. if you’re going to go live, you might as just go live for 24 hours a day. You might as well go all in and just absolutely do it nonstop. I’ve seen a couple of brands do that over in America in particular. They’re just like, we are live 24 seven. And you just keep like bringing in new presenters and stuff. And that’s, that’s cool. But I mean, yeah, literally how much can you actually sell?
Moritz Schröder (26:01.216)
You
Moritz Schröder (26:19.403)
You mentioned the difficulty to make that particular channel profitable also for you as an agency doing live selling and offer that on that kind of scale. How does that look like with TikTok shop and social commerce as a whole from an agency point of view? How profitable can you offer your services? Since as we talked about, it’s so much easier to just be an ad agency or a meta agency.
as opposed to doing all the different levers that we mentioned for social commerce. Is it hard to actually pull it off and have a healthy and sustainable profit margins or does that just come with the territory?
Oli Hills (26:58.062)
Yeah, mean, absolutely, absolutely can work. I guess we’re quite fortunate that the majority of our revenue actually comes from other TikTok services. So we work with brands a lot on managing, they’re always on organic. We do a lot of influencer activations. We do a lot of paid creative and paid campaigns as well. So the shop is just one service that we offer. We have…
We have two ways that we can do it. all obviously work with brands on a fixed fee. If they want to know what’s coming out of their bank every single month and the services and whatnot that we deliver. But for some brands they’re like, actually we want to go in this with you and we’ll do a commission deal. we give brands the choice. Ultimately they can pick which they prefer. Some want us to be side by side with them.
win if they win, others are like, actually, Oli I just need to know my cashflow and what’s going to be going out of the bank each month. And I don’t want this. We get one viral video, get a seven, like seven figure GMV on TikTok shop and I’m paying you 40, 50 grand. Like, so yeah, we, we, give, we give brands a choice and ultimately we know, we, we just know what’s required in order to succeed. mean, there are.
things like AI outreach tools for affiliates. It’s like, cool, that’s helpful for messaging, but how are you nurturing these people? How are you actually getting them involved as brand ambassadors? How are you inviting them to influencer events, creator events? What special products are we creating for them? How are we making them?
consistently promote our products and increase the posting rate and all that stuff. mean, I set an AI bot to go and message a thousand people and charge a hundred quid a month, but does that actually do anything? we, we, know the importance of, of kind of quality work when it comes to, to shop. and the fact that a lot of it, regardless of some AI tools is pretty manual. I’d say the only thing that’s
Oli Hills (29:08.01)
now a lot more cost effective for us to run than it was before. And we’ve adapted our charging is GNV Max because just the amount of time required to the amount of time required to run ads with GNV Max is much less than it was 12 months ago because okay, I know you have some slightly more levers that you can pull now manually. A lot of it is feed the beast with budget and ROI target and feed the beast with creative. So, and then there’s just
Moritz Schröder (29:16.051)
How so?
Moritz Schröder (29:23.071)
you
Oli Hills (29:37.802)
tinkering and tweaks and whatnot. So that has become more cost efficient for us to run on behalf of brands and that’s been very successful for us as well.
Moritz Schröder (29:49.533)
It’s also interesting what you just mentioned that actually with running a successful agency in that space, you have to go quite granular and you have to go quite manual in the kind of nurturing that you do with your community. So it’s almost the opposite side of the spectrum as opposed to all the high tech agencies or all the high tech companies that we’re seeing that can charge premiums because they use so much tech and it’s so advanced.
It seems like we’re going back to how business used to be done 20, 30 years ago. And I for one actually really enjoy that because I do feel like we lacking a little bit of a sense of community in this modern age of working. Everybody’s just on Slack all the time. They’re doing remote calls. It’s nice to have a little bit of that community feeling back. How do you as an agency actually go about nurturing your affiliates, your creators and the community that you want to build for non-slavery?
Do you have some gamifications? Do you have some leaderboards? You already mentioned you give some advice and guidelines to your creators. Can you elaborate a little bit more on how you approach that?
Oli Hills (30:57.836)
Yeah, yeah, of course. So we generally have kind of different tiers of where the affiliates sit and it all depends on GMV. Obviously, we want to motivate these people to make as much GMV as possible. So you’ve obviously got your open plan and I think the collaboration is cool now. think open collaboration is really fundamental in terms of just making sure that you’re getting the volume through. But to your point around nuance, it needs a lot of manual work.
It needs a lot of vetting. It needs a lot of reviewing to make sure the affiliate is as brand safe as can be. There’s no point having a dog account promoting a beauty brand, for example. You’ve got to go through and do that work. We then have our kind of general target collaboration, which is more of our proactive.
outreach, we’ve obviously got a huge roster of affiliates that we’ve worked with and kind of continue to work with on a daily and weekly basis. So we know the types of affiliates that work well. And then once they’re into into the brands, they’ve received the samples, then we do two webinars a month. So we just offer them up to say, hey, come and join a call. It’s 30 minutes, we’ll do 15 minutes on upcoming products, then we’ll do a quick 15 minutes just on a bit of bit of brand stuff.
We talk about any incentives that are coming, discounts, gift for purchase, or just another reason for them to post. And we then basically look at their GMV. And if they get into particular tiers, then they can unlock maybe in-person creative days at the brand’s offices. They can get invited to big PR and influencer events. They can win specific incentives. So some of the brands that we work with have given tickets to
Taylor Swift concert, Lady Gaga concert, like real cool prizes outside of just outside of just commissions. So it’s a case of thinking a bit creatively around how you can really get the affiliates to want to promote your brand rather than run any other because ultimately, the competition now is brutal. If you’re a beauty brand or women’s wear brand, or even home wear brand.
Moritz Schröder (32:51.357)
with.
Oli Hills (33:12.558)
for now, you have some stiff competition, nutrition and supplements is huge. So if you’re launching new, you know, for a fact that all of these other companies have probably got five, 10, 15,000 affiliates already on their roster. What are you going to do? That’s going to get them to promote your products when you’ve got zero credibility, zero sales, zero reviews in your shop, you’ve got to do something a little bit more exciting and interesting to get them involved. So you’ve got to think creatively now to especially starting out.
to get affiliates to want to come and represent your company on the platform and with content they create. So it’s a big thing. We’ve got a lot of people in our affiliate team who are constantly working to nurture these affiliates and upscale them, but also incentivize them in other ways.
Moritz Schröder (33:58.555)
How do they find them initially? Do they actually use those automated outright outreach tools? I had the co-founder of Yuka AI, for example, on at some point, maybe that’s one of the tools you’re using. But still, I would think it’s very difficult to find them because also there’s such a high demand, right? So a lot of them probably are working with other agencies, competing brands. So there’s a lot of intricacies that you need to navigate to find the ones that are actually good, but are not already taken.
Oli Hills (34:07.149)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (34:28.304)
How do you do with that?
Oli Hills (34:29.774)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. mean, again, we’re fortunate we’ve been around for a long time. So we’ve worked a lot with different affiliates. We know which ones are good. So we’ve kind of built a bit of a relationship with them, which is helpful. So that’s always a good starting point. Around the automation tools, again, it depends on the brand because ultimately what an automation tool is doing is going out to, okay, predetermined roster that you’ve selected based on filters, but you’re saying…
Hey, we like your content. Why don’t you apply to be part of our open plan? They then come through and actually through vetting, say, no, that’s not right. So then you end up declining them. So you have this massive problem where an affiliate could literally go and create a video on TikTok today and say, I got this message from this brand and then I got rejected. And all of sudden it’s a storm. So you’ve got to be so careful with using some of these big outreach tools.
Moritz Schröder (35:18.831)
Right.
Oli Hills (35:23.916)
because there is a risk that affiliates could bad mouth you on online and hey, they’ve got a big community. That’s what they’re doing. And we know bad news travels further than the good news. any sort of, yeah, commotion or negativity, the video is going to perform well annoyingly. So you got to be careful. You got to have that discussion with the brand upfront to say, are the two ways we can do it.
This way has some risk, but it will get there quicker. This other route is much more manual, it’ll take longer, but you have much more security over brand safety and perception online. So everything comes out as a conversation with brands and what they are and aren’t comfortable with.
Moritz Schröder (36:08.293)
I would imagine that it’s also difficult with new creators and affiliates that join your community because they don’t yet have that loyalty to you or the brands that you’re working with. Whereas you mentioned you’ve been around for some time and the ones that have been working with you from the very beginning, I’m sure would never go behind your back or like bad mouth you online because of all the things you’ve been through together on all the things you have accomplished together, but you don’t really have that with new creators, right?
have to build that trust, you have to build that community and that then ultimately gives you probably the chance to also charge a premium to the brands that you’re working with for your services.
Oli Hills (36:48.244)
Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t think you can underestimate the power of that and the kind of community that has been created. And like you say, it’s new affiliates have never heard of you before and they’re the ones that unfortunately the automated bots are going out to, right? So there’s even more risk when it comes to that. But we also know that TikTok’s a numbers game and it will be that affiliate that you look at and just like there is no chance in hell the brand is going to approve them. But
We just need to do it because they’ll create content. gets 10 million views and sells a hundred thousand pounds worth of stuff. you’re like, there’s no, there’s no rhyme or reason. number of times that you’ve been to marketing conferences, you may have even done a marketing degree and everyone tells you what good content is. An affiliate creates something that looks like it’s been shot on a potato. It’s utterly terrible. And it works. It’s so infuriating.
Moritz Schröder (37:17.595)
you
Moritz Schröder (37:47.195)
Yeah, but also so exciting, right? I mean, the barrier of entrance is so low. Anyone can film on their crappy old iPhone. Your grandma can make a viral TikTok and nobody can stop them, right? If you’re willing to put in the work or if you’re maybe just some undiscovered marketing genius who knows what people want to hear, then you can pull it off.
Oli Hills (37:49.666)
Yes.
Oli Hills (37:59.918)
Thank
Oli Hills (38:09.718)
That is it. That is it. we, we always, we always surface to brands that we work with, like this is the best performing affiliate video. And when you get to that slide and monthly report, like, don’t judge the content, but if anything, we should learn from it. So what can you take from this affiliate video that’s selling unbelievably well? And actually bring that into your other campaigns because people obviously resonate with this.
Moritz Schröder (38:19.035)
Ha!
Moritz Schröder (38:22.907)
You
Oli Hills (38:38.392)
There’s obviously a reason why this video is worked from a sales perspective. So let’s not just laugh at it and just go, Christ, I’d never create something like that. Let’s take those learnings into the other campaigns you’re doing because that’s what is selling.
Moritz Schröder (38:38.914)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (38:53.272)
I think a lot of people had that experience when TikTok itself first launched. I mean, I’m a little bit all around 37 now, so I’m definitely not who initially was adopting TikTok. was the teenagers at the time. And I was looking down at it and was like, these cringy teenagers dancing to silly little videos. What is the appeal? I just don’t get it. But it works and people…
kept loving it more and more and kept getting more into it. And of course the content expanded well beyond just dancing. So at some point you have to look at yourself and be like, okay, you might not like it, but this is what humanity wants. That’s how we’re programmed somehow or another to enjoy. So might as well go with it.
Oli Hills (39:31.822)
That’s it.
Oli Hills (39:37.122)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that nowadays, mean, Christ, if you ever watch live TV and have to sit through adverts, they’re all so bad. So bad. Radio adverts are terrible. Like, where’s all the creative gone? And it’s like, well, actually what TikTok’s done is it’s democratized creativity. It’s given that ability to every single creator in the world who has a mobile phone to say, what do you think’s good?
Moritz Schröder (39:44.355)
You
Oli Hills (40:05.742)
And I think as a brand, got to eat humble pie and you got to look at that and go, yeah, you know what? I’m going to learn from this and I’m going to integrate them into that into some of my comms and email marketing and own creative, whether we work with that affiliate on an ongoing basis or bring them into our TV campaigns or like, how’d you, how’d you kind of complete that ecosystem? Because the learning at the frontline is, is insane. mean, you sell on Amazon, you’ve got really no idea why someone’s bought that.
No idea. No idea. Whereas TikTok shop is like, well, someone has seen this video that said this, this, this is in this. This was the structure of the video and that’s got them to buy. So there must be something in there that we can unpick. So once you want to pick that, then you can go into your own ad creative, say on meta or whatever. And all of a sudden the whole thing feeds the beast. It’s the, it’s the best frontline learning system ever is TikTok.
Moritz Schröder (40:51.022)
Right.
Moritz Schröder (41:03.79)
And you have a very clear formula, right? mean, people play around with it, obviously, but you do have the hook and you do have the visuals and how the product is presented and what the affiliate is doing while talking about the product. What’s the actual scenario? Like there’s a lot of components that you can take apart and look at and see, okay, this works probably because of this hook or because of what the creator said about the product here or what they’re doing while they’re talking. Like there’s a limit.
Oli Hills (41:33.166)
.
Moritz Schröder (41:33.723)
amount of how much you can do in a 30 second video and you can take that apart and see which parts of the puzzles work.
Oli Hills (41:42.926)
Yeah, 100%, 100%. You just gotta have again, the time and commitment to do that, right? the, okay, what’s the cost of creative is ultimately nurturing that relationship, but the cost of a sample, right? If you’re going with like genuine UGC creative and UGC creators now are charging through the roof because they know how valuable they are. They’ve got extra cost for paid usage rights for 30, 90, 180 days.
and I’m going to get three videos. So all of a sudden going down the affiliate route is I’ve got essentially relatively cheap cost of production and cost of content where I get to test massively at scale. What’s not to like? Well, the risk is that they turn around and create content in a way that you would not expect or anticipate or want them to. But hey, if it sells, there’s a learning there.
Moritz Schröder (42:41.302)
Exactly, I think.
Traditionally, a lot of brands were very afraid to take any risks also because of the costs associated with it, right? I mean, if you shoot a TV commercial back in the days, it might cost you a million dollars. So you don’t really have any leverage to pull and to actually take those creative risks. You’re not going to put something out there at prime time blasted to the entire country and make something that potentially embarrasses you and your brand and gets you fired.
Oli Hills (43:13.248)
Next time.
Moritz Schröder (43:13.29)
Where is with a failure you might as well let them run loose and see what comes back
Oli Hills (43:19.022)
My message to brands all the time is there is nothing stopping any single person going to the local store or buying a product directly from you, going on TikTok and creating a video and saying it’s rubbish. That’s just the world we live in. And if an affiliate does that, then you can just cut ties and remove the affiliate link. So really, what’s the risk?
Moritz Schröder (43:47.051)
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. I I agree. I think the risk is relatively low. How was it for you when you first came across TikTok?
Oli Hills (43:47.97)
They don’t listen to me, but I say it.
Moritz Schröder (44:00.679)
shop in the very early days when it first launched in the UK. Because I know that your agency, Nonsensical, was already existent before TikTok shop was ever a thing, right? What were you doing before and what made you realize that now is the time to actually shift and go all in on this very new and very unproven way of selling online.
Oli Hills (44:23.278)
Yeah, yeah. mean, so we actually had our own accounts on Instagram and Facebook before. So we run communities, our own accounts with millions of followers. And we basically worked as an influencer. So we would work with brands on brand partnerships and distributing content through our communities that we created. 2020 comes along and…
All of our clients were leisure, retail and hospitality. And funny enough, they don’t want to advertise during, during lockdown. So we were basically ground zero. We just lost all of our revenue in the space of a week. And that’s when we saw TikTok and we thought, well, we’ve got nothing better to do. We might as just go have a play around. So we started to create some of our own accounts on TikTok, grew them to a million followers. Next thing you know, brands came to us and were like, you seem to know what you’re doing. Can you help us? And that was, that was the start. So yeah, that was October 2020. So just over five years ago.
We went kind of all in on, um, on TikTok as a platform. Um, we’re now growing to a team of 45 full-time employees, um, working with some really cool brands, not just on shop, but like I said earlier on, on organic paid influencer strategy. Um, but the, the first sign of shop really was the, all of the dupe products that were uploaded. And you just couldn’t hide from the fact that every single product on TikTok shop.
was basically a dupe from China and it just, was a Dyson dupe air wrap hairdryer that was going viral. And the problem was that basically like we need to get, I’m just going to close down this tab because it’s for some reason it’s going past my do not disturb. So there’s a Google chat. There we go. I’ve turned off. so yeah, I mean, when the Dyson dupe
hairdryers were, were, were, were blowing up. TikTok were basically putting their own products onto the platform to get people to start to buy. So the first view you had was, well, this is all essentially knockoff product. And am I even going to get it delivered? Like, I don’t know if I trust this. So that was the first introduction of shop into the UK. And all of a sudden everyone was a bit skeptical of it. They were a bit like, what is this? It just.
Oli Hills (46:45.666)
feels like another team or whatever. So TikTok had to do a lot of work on the shop side to get well-known established brands on the platform and build credibility. So we were on TikTok shopping with the first brand we launched was a suite, like a Japanese type suite business inspired by
anime characters and stuff, really cool brands would work well. But when we were on TikTok shopping, were like, is this fake? Is this real? What is this? I don’t trust it. And trying to get through that was so hard. And we had 12 months of just pain when nobody was buying anything because nobody trusted it. All of a sudden, then you get some
Moritz Schröder (47:32.31)
Why did you trust it, by the way? I mean, you didn’t have to go through all that pain, right? You chose to. What made you believe in it?
Oli Hills (47:37.838)
Yeah, no, it’s So our agency motto is we will go and explore the new. So as we’ve always done, TikTok was this thing in 2020 where everyone was dancing, chucking toilet roll around. And we were like, well, we need to go and explore this. We need to go and make sure that we understand it better than anybody else. So that’s why we set up communities on there. I mean, we could have just left it, but we were like, no, we’re the explorers. We’ll go and work this out and then we’ll bring the knowledge back to the brands. And that’s what we’ve always done.
Moritz Schröder (47:44.694)
Good motor.
Oli Hills (48:08.108)
So when TikTok Shop came along, it was like, hey, get on your Explorer cap and off you go. And you just go and learn it. You work it out. You explore. In some of our communities, we turned into an affiliate. So we learned that side of the process and started to make some money on that side of it. So we just go and test load of stuff. We try it then we bring those learnings through to the brand. So yeah, for us, it was just our unrelented want to be the explorers of the new.
Moritz Schröder (48:35.007)
I mean, that’s such a cool mindset to have.
On the other hand, it’s, as you said, really painful oftentimes. I mean, nobody really wants to go back to square one, Nobody, everybody’s like, have a beginner’s mind, blah, blah, blah. Nobody really enjoys that. Like, why would you leave the cushy area that you have carved out for yourself if you then force yourself to do something that basically doesn’t generate revenue the first 12 months and everybody’s kind of frowning at it and you’re the one out there exploring.
And in retrospect, it’s a very cool story, but in the moment, I’m sure it was very tough.
Oli Hills (49:10.796)
yeah. mean, well, we’ve just, we’ve just hired a head of social shows. big thing is we believe TikTok is going to turn into TV. So that’s our big punts. We’re going to go and prove that that’s the right. So we’ve, actually invest in these things all the time. It’s just a philosophy we have at the agency where we’re like, no, we believe this, we believe this is going to be the next big trend or the next big shift. And we’re going to put our money where our mouth is and go and learn it. So.
Yeah, we’ve always just had that mindset. And obviously, when you go through lockdown and basically lose all your revenue, you don’t really have much choice. was my back to against the wall anyway. So we were basically out of business. So we might as well. like, any worse than it was. So we might as well just continue to explore.
Moritz Schröder (49:56.18)
You said you picked up TikTok and then you grew your accounts to a million plus followers as if it was nothing. Can you unpack that a little bit? I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there trying to do even one 10, 10 % of that. And they’re failing miserably. How did you grow it to a million subscribers? And it sounded fairly quickly with a platform that before that you were not really familiar with.
Oli Hills (50:25.582)
Well, yeah, twofold. One, we knew how to create content. We’d already created communities on Instagram and Facebook. So this was just a delve into short form video. So we kind of had the expertise in house and the skill set in order to do it. wasn’t like I’d come from a manufacturing background and was like, we’re going to win on TikTok. The second thing is, it was early. I mean, Christ almighty, when Facebook first started, you could grow a community like that. It was so simple.
Same as TikTok. mean, we, we grew one account to a hundred thousand followers in 50 days. It was just so, so easy because there weren’t that many people creating content. A lot more people were following back then. Nobody really follows accounts anymore. You don’t need to. Your for you page is so well curated. don’t really need to follow anyone. So we, we work with some brands now where we get, I mean, one brand in particular, we did 25 million views organically.
in November and their followers grew like 800 followers. 25 million views, 800 followers. It’s just not that type of platform anymore. So I always focus on the quality of the content and the quality of the content is decided by the algorithm, which is decided by engagement and watch time. So if your content is resonating and it’s appearing in the right people’s for you pages, then it will perform from a video view perspective.
Don’t worry about followers. yeah, I mean, at the time it was, we had time, had expertise and we just, but the other thing of course, Morris, is it’s easy to create content. It’s very accessible, not easy, it’s accessible. So if you’ve got a mobile phone, you’re away. You can edit in Capcom or on TikTok.
It’s not like we’re hiring out studios with five, 10, 15 people to create one video that’s going to take all day. You can churn out three, four, five videos a day at the time. And that was just our pursuit of learning and exploring the new. were just like, right, we’re just going to fully commit to this and off you go. And we had so many videos that didn’t work and we had a lot of videos that did.
Moritz Schröder (52:35.396)
Right. And plus you had an audience that was probably under lockdown sitting at home with nothing to do and relatively few creators still on the platform compared to now. So it was kind of a magical period, I guess, to get onto TikTok.
Oli Hills (52:40.686)
It’s amazing.
Oli Hills (52:47.246)
Oh yeah, it was perfect. Yeah, I don’t think you could do it now necessarily. I think it’s a lot more difficult to do that today. I mean, just more broadly, I think a lot of the content from brands in particular is becoming a little bit more high quality and premium before it was just jumping on trends and dances. I think if a brand does that now, they just get absolutely lambasted in the comments. So it’s hard to do that strategy now.
Moritz Schröder (53:16.058)
Rightfully so,
Oli Hills (53:17.354)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we picked a niche as well. So we had a community about mythology. So Zeus, Medusa and Thor. So we were like real niche in what we did. We had LGBT community called Endless Pride. Obviously, that’s a very specific community that the content resonates with. We have one about true crime, which obviously people like to follow. We have some local communities about Birmingham and Bristol here in the UK. So we always pick a niche of an audience where
we know we can be really focused with the content. And that’s where, again, if you go back to TikTok shop, picking a product and understanding the audience right before you even launch on the platform is so paramount because how is it that my content, whether it’s me posting and affiliate posting, is going to resonate with that audience that I know is going to buy? And going as niche as possible on the platform is so unbelievably helpful, but also scary because brands go, our audience is everyone.
Here we go again.
Moritz Schröder (54:19.25)
Yeah, can imagine that that’s a conversation you’re having on a almost daily basis. Are there any niches that you expect to blow up in 2026 and onwards that so far haven’t really made the jump yet to TikTok Shop?
Oli Hills (54:34.094)
Shops an interesting one. Shops an interesting one. I think there will be more…
more products specifically designed for shop. If you think about stuff that is colourful, slightly unusual, it’s like all those talking points. It’s very visual, it’s easy to talk about, you can do really good before and afters. There’s a way that you can curate a product like Wonderskin. Wonderskin is a great example. They have a lip stain.
But to put it on your lips go just ridiculous blue color. So when you’re scrolling through the feed, it’s like, why’s she got blue lips? I’m in. As a hook, I am in. Like, wow, I wasn’t expecting that at all. So that’s quite an interesting one. And then I know we could talk all day, but I do think there is a, an interesting shift around AI avatars. I think that will be something that will really start to come to the fore.
Moritz Schröder (55:16.808)
Great for TikTok.
Moritz Schröder (55:21.296)
Right. Yeah.
Oli Hills (55:41.263)
and I’ll be interested to see which brands are brave enough to go down that route.
Moritz Schröder (55:45.584)
Are you betting on that as an agency? You said you want to be first, you’re putting on your explorer head. Do you do the same with AI or do you feel like that’s something that you wish was not coming because you’re betting on the opposite?
Oli Hills (55:59.776)
No, no, no, we are, we are rolling. Yeah, we’ve got, we’ve got Google flow VO three, we’ve got Sora three, we’re doing loads of cool stuff. We’re doing a lot of AI carousels, like products listings, we’re doing some avatar stuff as well. yeah, it’s these things you can’t hire. They will come.
Moritz Schröder (56:02.908)
Ha
Moritz Schröder (56:22.469)
Yeah, gonna be hard. I’m sure for the workflow, it’s gonna be super beneficial going forward. Also for creators to create their content and maybe turn out even more. Do you fear that it might replace the entire creator industry at some point though, because it’s just so almost impossible to keep up with the amount that is being created through AI.
Oli Hills (56:45.59)
Yeah, and I think you said it perfectly before, Maurice, the quality wins. Quality always wins when it comes to content on TikTok because the algorithm and the engagement rate decides. So it’s not about volume. Volume doesn’t really help. So your point there around, well, AI will help with workflows and make things much more effective to create. It’s like, well, that means you’re just going to get three times as much rubbish on the platform.
which will get a hundred views and never be seen after So if you’re creating with AI, but you’re doing it in a way that is quality, it’s really resonating, engaging with the community, then absolutely. Like why wouldn’t you do that? But you still got to focus on what is the actual crux of the creative and the content and why that’s interesting and relatable to the community you’re trying to speak to. If you can use AI to do that, happy days. But it’s
The best thing about TikTok is the numbers don’t lie, do they? You can either get 100,000 views or 50 views. If all of your AI dross videos that you’re churning out again, 50 views, you’re going to stop pretty quickly, aren’t you? So if the AI videos that people are creating that get 100,000 views are well curated, they’re well thought of, they’re adding value to the platform, that’s also fine. I think you just got to go into it with a very pragmatic data approach and find what’s right for you, but also the brand. think the brand are going to decide if they are…
in or out of AI. I don’t think you can be half in half out. I you’ve already come into it.
Moritz Schröder (58:17.764)
Yeah, I think specifically when comes to selling through affiliates, there’s still…
At least for the foreseeable future, a need for that human, authentic, relatable person to sell the product. Even though a lot of companies and also agencies are exploring what is possible with like AI creators and such. But there I feel like, okay, we’re still a little far off when it comes to creating engaging content. Generally that is not supposed to convert because it’s just there to entertain. I feel like we’re pretty much there that AI is doing oftentimes better than any human
ever could just because you can prompt anything, right? I mean, if you have Stephen Hawking going down a half pipe, how can you compete with that? I can do whatever I want. I’m not going to be able to be more engaging than that.
Oli Hills (58:55.468)
Yeah.
Oli Hills (59:01.294)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that’s where it’s quite fun, right? I think if you use AI for doing stuff that you can’t replicate with a human, I think is, is actually really quite interesting. The big thing, of course, though, is just morally, right? If you’re a supplement or a vitamin brand, and you’ve got an avatar saying that this magnesium helps me sleep better. So, really?
turning into code is gonna help you sleep better, Mr. AI avatar. It’s like not a fake magnesium pill. So I think there’s a moral compass that we need to explore. We obviously know some people will go against that moral compass somewhat.
Moritz Schröder (59:29.976)
Hahaha
Moritz Schröder (59:42.576)
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, mean, the crater economy seems to be very
unregulated for better or worse still. You have the platforms that are somewhat regulating what is allowed to be uploaded. And that’s a good thing clearly, but at the same time, they want to be as engaging as possible and want to keep people on the platform for as long as possible. So if there are just armies of people churning out AI content that actually is intriguing and wants to have people keep watching, then they’re going to have a hard time shutting all of that off.
Oli Hills (01:00:17.806)
Oh yeah, yeah. mean, and ultimately like the audience will decide, right? If the audience is on TikTok or being just absolutely hammered with AI sludge, you know what will happen? A new social short form video app, maybe Vine for example, will kick back up and say, here’s the platform where there’s no AI creative. Next question. And everyone goes, cool.
Moritz Schröder (01:00:39.779)
Yeah, that’s an interesting move. You just mentioned Vine. think Jack Dorsey wants to bring it back, right? And without any AI slop. Could be a good move.
Oli Hills (01:00:45.806)
Exactly. Yeah. So all of a sudden you’re like, well, actually, are going to vote with their feet, aren’t they? People voted with their feet with X. It’s like, I actually don’t really like Elon and what he’s doing and what he’s standing for. So I’m just not going to use it. You’re like, oh, cool. So if TikTok turns into an experience that you used to really enjoy, and now you go on and it’s just really crap AI slop, you’re just going, I’m just not going to go on anymore. So the platforms ultimately have
Moritz Schröder (01:00:58.349)
Right.
Oli Hills (01:01:15.298)
the biggest reason to keep the experience as good as possible, because that’s the eyeballs is what matters. If you’re not getting eyeballs, you’re not making any money.
Moritz Schröder (01:01:25.077)
that you got to strike a balance. Oli, fantastic talking with you about the future and the present of social commerce and social creation. Where can people reach out to you? Where can they get in touch with you if they want to work together?
Oli Hills (01:01:27.489)
Absolutely.
Oli Hills (01:01:39.406)
Yeah, amazing. Yeah, no really, really enjoyed it. There’s a, yeah, it’s a fascinating, fascinating, just space that we’re going into. And we’re so, so early, have to remind myself that we’re so early, uh, into social commerce. I mean, we’ve been on TikTok shop for two and a half, three years, and I feel so old on it, yeah, so, um, yeah, nonsense.go.agencies our website, um, Oli Hill’s on, on LinkedIn, uh, talk a lot about the wonderful world of social commerce and TikTok more broadly. So yeah, if you follow me on there and drop me a message, I’ll, uh,
Moritz Schröder (01:01:46.946)
Ha ha!
Moritz Schröder (01:01:56.184)
haha
Oli Hills (01:02:09.356)
Drop you on back.
Moritz Schröder (01:02:11.47)
Awesome! Oli, thanks so much for coming on!
Oli Hills (01:02:13.902)
My pleasure, yeah, I really enjoyed it and look forward to catching up soon. Cheers, Moritz.
Moritz Schröder (01:02:17.474)
Take care mate.