TikTok recently co-hosted a panel at ADWEEK House to hand out hardware for its inaugural TikTok Media Buying Excellence Awards. Alexia Nüssli, the platform's head of product strategy and operations, framed the gathering around a grander mission than mere ad placement. As Nüssli put it, “Brands turn to agencies not just for media performance; they turn to agencies to drive holistic business growth.”
Two winning agency leaders took the stage to explain how that growth actually happens on the ground. Zayit Bemmel, associate director of paid advertising for fashion at Power Digital, laid out the operating manual with complete candor. “We are following their guidance in tandem with our best practices and expertise that we have across our entire team to lean into things like TikTok Shop or the new tools that they have,” Bemmel explained. Once clients trust the agency, she noted, “they’re going to be way more bullish and willing to test into those tools.”
The mechanic is straightforward. TikTok ships commerce formats, ad placements, and automated tools at breakneck speed. Convincing brand-side chief marketing officers to sink live media budgets into unproven ad products is difficult, especially when conversion data is thin. The independent agency solves that distribution problem. The agency spends years building institutional trust with a brand, then spends that social capital convincing the brand to fund tests on TikTok's latest inventory.
Warren Jolly, co-founder of Adquadrant, was equally direct when discussing clients skeptical of synthetic creative. “Even if you’re a brand that’s very anti-AI creative or conscious about it,” Jolly argued, using AI-generated content to “meet the demands of the creative supply chain is a great opportunity for differentiation.” Whether the client wants synthetic video or not, the agency positions the testing as cutting-edge media hygiene. The performance risk sits entirely on the brand ledger.
Adquadrant and Power Digital took home trophies for staying on TikTok's cutting edge. The clients funding their media mix models simply paid the bill for beta-testing TikTok Shop.