It took Dr Pepper, the American soft drink brand, a full 40 years to catch up to Pepsi in the battle for second place in sales. How symbolic it is that the surprising turnaround in this quintessentially American contest, largely credited to the brand's activity on TikTok, is being announced on the very day that Donald Trump, the former and perhaps future US President, launches his official TikTok account.
You're not mistaken if Trump's official TikTok account sounds suspicious to you. As president, Trump banned TikTok. In the 2020 campaign, both Trump and Joe Biden steered clear of the platform. However, the roots of the conflict between Trump and TikTok stretch back to mid-2020. A viral campaign on the Chinese network at the time called for people to register for Trump's massive campaign rally – and then not show up, of course. As a result, while Trump's team reported over a million ticket reservations, it turned out that hundreds of thousands of them had been made by his opponents. Consequently, Trump's team failed to fill even half the capacity of the massive convention center.
Since then, Trump has kept his distance from TikTok throughout the campaign. Biden and Kamala Harris, who were also flying under the radar, recognized the platform's potential and knew how to leverage it at the right moment by disseminating campaign messages, such as the video of the fly crawling on Trump's vice president throughout the televised debate, accompanied by the slogan "Truth over Flies" on the accounts of highly followed and exposed influencers. On Harris's niece's account, for instance, Harris starred in one of the most famous and viral videos, even dancing for her amusement.
While it took Trump several years to make Twitter his home turf, it seems TikTok – where everything happens much faster, stronger, and higher – was his true natural habitat long before he joined: aggressive, extreme, noisy, favoring "wham-bam" tactics and fake news.
Not exactly America's Nelson Mandela when it comes to forgiveness, Trump remembers his TikTok boycott. But he has swallowed his pride, opened a TikTok account, and amassed nearly three million followers in less than a day. While on paper, Trump's move to TikTok may seem like a game-changer, the outcome can still go both ways: The Chinese, as we all learned the hard way during the war, can uplift or crash every account according to their interests, or in this case, their blood-stained history with Trump.
Will Trump be able to do to Biden in four months what it took Dr Pepper 40 years to do to Pepsi? No doubt he can deliver on TikTok. The question is whether the Chinese will allow it.
Itay Tsamir is a Digital Strategist, Lecturer and Consultant
www.tsamirdl.com
