TikTok helps AUNZ brands take their businesses global as overseas ad spend doubles
Australian and New Zealand businesses are turning to TikTok to take their brands beyond borders, using the platform’s powerful combination of discovery, creativity and commerce to reach new customers around the world.
More than one in three major AUNZ advertisers on TikTok are now investing overseas. In the past year, AUNZ brands have more than doubled their TikTok ad investment into international markets, up 105% year-on-year, with a particular focus on the US, UK and Europe.
To help businesses understand the opportunities for international growth and expansion, TikTok brought together hundreds of Australia’s fastest-growing global businesses in Sydney this week. Attendees heard about the different pathways to international growth, from culture and consumer intelligence, to demand generation into commerce and retail, plus technology-enabled global marketing at scale.
Says Amy Bradshaw (pictured above), General Manager for Global Business Solutions, TikTok Australia and New Zealand: “We’re seeing Australian and New Zealand businesses use TikTok not simply as another advertising channel, but as a platform for international growth, that helps them understand new markets, build culturally relevant creative and turn demand into measurable business outcomes.
“From software and apps to gaming and consumer brands, businesses are increasingly building for global audiences from day one, and TikTok is becoming a powerful part of the infrastructure that makes that possible.”
TikTok offers brands several pathways to international growth.
Consumer intelligence and connection to culture
Headquartered in New Zealand, Kiwi consumer products company ZURU use global TikTok insights, including community feedback and data, to help inform new products, often taking them from idea to market in just three months.
Brittany Oliver, CMO at ZURU Toys, said their highly successful Baddies plush toy collection came about because the TikTok community took the original Fuggler plush collectable and made them their own: “Through TikTok we identified that our audience was ‘Baddiefying’ their Fugglers. This direct consumer intelligence led to new product development, a real-life consumer event, and a genuine cultural phenomenon.”
The Fuggler brand generated 177 million US hashtag views in 90 days, demonstrating TikTok’s connection to culture, and how rapidly community interest can build around a product and drive demand.
Adds Oliver: “For ZURU, TikTok has become a destination for consumer insights, and a vital pipeline for innovation and product development. It’s absolutely where we are building our future.”
Demand generation into commerce and retail
TikTok Shop is reducing the distance between discovery and purchase, while creating new opportunities for brands to use e-commerce as a launchpad into international markets.
Social-first, Australian oral care brand Hismile saw a huge opportunity with TikTok Shop for outbound. First launching on TikTok Shop in 2023, Hismile now operates in 16 different markets, and is expected to generate $50M in GMV on TikTok Shop alone in 2026.
Justin Gaggino, General Manager for Hismile, said the momentum they’ve seen on TikTok Shop helped open doors to physical retail opportunities in the US and the UK: “TikTok Shop helped take our business to the next level. Our content has created significant consumer demand, with our toothpaste becoming the number one top selling oral care brand in the US on TikTok Shop.
“This ability to generate online demand has unlocked real-world global expansion for us, disrupting traditional sales pathways and taking our Australian-born product to the world.”
Bradshaw said these are just some of the success stories that TikTok hears and sees every day, and that now is the time to take off with TikTok: “What excites me most is that global growth is becoming more accessible to more businesses. Australian and New Zealand companies can now move from local ambition to international scale much faster, and Take Off with TikTok is about helping them understand how to make that opportunity real.”
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