With a deal set to close Thursday transferring control of TikTok‘s U.S. operations to a new investor consortium, the video platform is planning a big presence at the Sundance Film Festival.
At the center of the push at Sundance, which opens Thursday, is a new set of offerings for entertainment advertisers.
Headlining the new options are TikTok Streaming Ads and New Title Launch. The streaming ads vehicle showcases a range of shows to high-intent TikTok viewers, personalizing the ad experience by showing the programming deemed to be most relevant to the user based on their preferences and the videos they watch.
New Title Launch is also designed to drive subscriptions as well as ticket sales for movies or live events. The tool lets advertisers use signals from TikTok like a user’s favorite movie genre or pricing sensitivity as they look to launch a new season of a series, a new tentpole movie or a big sports or premiere event.
At Sundance, which is marking its final edition in Park City, UT, before moving to Boulder, CO, next year, TikTok will have a significant presence.
The company will team with A24 to host a creator welcome event featuring a special integration with The Moment, a meta-mockumentary starring Charli xcx, with the pop star in attendance. Multiple panels centering on the intersection of fandom, film culture and creators, will also feature TikTok and Sundance execs along with Charli xcx and several TikTok-ers.
At the same time the festival gets under way, the long-anticipated deal to separate the U.S. operation of TikTok from parent company ByteDance is expected to be completed. The restructuring will see a new investor consortium, which still includes ByteDance and other global entities, control the U.S. side of TikTok, along with Oracle and other U.S.-based backers.
Lawmakers and officials for years have voiced concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to U.S. user data from TikTok, and that the situation represents a security threat.