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J. League to attract Gen Z crowd through TikTok Partnership

J League and League management want more people to know. We want to use TikTok to present aspects of the J.League that we couldn’t show before. In April, the league announced a new partnership with TikTok to use the video-sharing service to offer an unfiltered look behind the scenes and further development of the league’s digital drive in recent years. Japan’s top soccer league, J.League, has announced a new partnership with the short social video platform TikTok, the quick social video platform TikTok. The content partnership builds on the growing popularity of Japan’s flagship football among Gen Z audiences. According to a fan-led J.League poll, the average fan’s age before the pandemic was around 34 and 43, with the number of supporters under 30 falling to 22.1%.

The new partnership with TikTok is the latest move the League has taken to capitalise on user-generated content, following the introduction of new social media rules that, for the first time, directly allow fans to upload photos taken during a game and videos taken in the stadium. Action ahead of the 2022 season League finds new audience abroad – TikTok reports that TikTok reached 1 billion active users in 2021 and that videos containing the hashtags #calcio have received over 510 billion views. TikTok was first launched by Chinese company ByteDance in 2017 and had to trail WhatsApp only in terms of app downloads in 2019 when the short content platform surpassed social media giants Facebook and Instagram.

In interviews, multiple marketers talked about TikTok‘s unique user experience, agreeing that TikTok content cannot be easily repurposed on or from other social media platforms. According to numerous marketers, consistent content delivery is vital, as TikTok’s algorithm rewards users for frequent posting. Yosuke Sato, general manager of TikTok Japan, suggested that TikTok would focus on short videos, and its algorithm-based discovery feed would help drive more users to J. League. One of the first results was that TikTok users prefer content that feels real. And therefore trustworthy: 80% of respondents say they are likely to trust certain content from an influencer more if it matches their life experience.

The first is a white paper on commercial TikTok for Gen Z, a qualitative study of about 80 Gen Z users. TikTok For Business, the brand and platform hosting the company’s current and future marketing solutions, recently released two white papers. Regarding the needs, interests and habits of Gen Z, J.League and TikTok will launch “Hashtag Challenges” each game day, allowing fans and enthusiasts to post and create game-exclusive content from the stands. The league has also named a comedian as the league’s TikTok ambassador, whose high school football performance boosted his TikTok following to 1.5 million.