Sustainable Brands – Comprehension and Importance of Sustainability in TikTok

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to study the TikTok platform and its suitability for educational contents about sustainability. This study builds an understanding of TikTok users’ level of comprehension and attitudes regarding sustainability. TikTok users was studied globally to gain understanding of the comprehension and attitudes across country borders.

One part of being a sustainable company is to share understanding, thus educating customers. Tiktok is a new growing platform with a distinguished algorithm that may create marketing professionals some new approaches to educational content. So, researching this topic can give more understanding and tools for marketing professionals to optimize their sustainability communication and thus increase customer loyalty.

The quantitative research was conducted through an online questionnaire with multiple choice and Likert Scale questions. Two hypotheses were set to gain a more in-depth understanding of the relationships between age and comprehension as well as comprehension and importance of sustainability. The study was limited to monthly TikTok users over 18 years of age who make their own purchase decisions.

The results show that the comprehension of the whole concept of sustainability is lacking, especially regarding economic sustainability. However, sustainability in full was found to have importance in the minds of the respondents, even though they did not understand all dimensions equally. TikTok was also seen as a good platform for educational content by the respondents.

TikTok has potential for educational sustainability communications but is limitedly used nowadays. The interest in sustainability is found and therefore creating content that give new perspectives to sustainability would be beneficial to the consumers.