Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the impact of TikTok on New Zealand's economy

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the impact of TikTok on New Zealand's economy · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: We've got insight for the first time, as I understand it,
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  Speaker 2: into TikTok. It supports ninety seven hundred jobs in this country,
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  Speaker 2: contributes one point two billion to the GDP. Six hundred
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  Speaker 2: and seventy thousand of us made a purchase after discovering
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  Speaker 2: something on TikTok. Brad Olsom, principal economist, has done the
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  Speaker 2: work and at Informetrics, of course, and he's with us.
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  Speaker 3: Brad Morning, Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Those numbers bigger or smaller than you would have guessed.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we weren't quite sure. I mean, that was the
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  Speaker 3: whole point of doing this analysis was we knew had
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  Speaker 3: an idea, if you will, about the number of users,
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  Speaker 3: but we didn't really know how that flowed through the economy.
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  Speaker 3: So we deliberately went out and surveyed both users and businesses.
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  Speaker 3: Quite surprised in a sense to see that half of
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  Speaker 3: businesses in New Zealand reckon they using TikTok in some way,
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  Speaker 3: shape or form. But also when we dug into those numbers,
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  Speaker 3: things became a little bit easier to understand given that
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  Speaker 3: about fifteen percent of businesses who use it say they
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  Speaker 3: don't actually do anything paid on it. They're not necessarily
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  Speaker 3: doing any marketing, but the posting organic videos, which from
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  Speaker 3: a marketing perspective is quite a low cost effective way
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  Speaker 3: to get out to a whole bunch. So there was
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  Speaker 3: I guess, quite useful to understand how that flows through
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  Speaker 3: into the supply chain.
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  Speaker 2: And how do you put a number on that just
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  Speaker 2: because you do something weird online, how do you prove
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  Speaker 2: that that then generates some bottom line action?
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  Speaker 3: Yep, no, no fair question. So we also asked users
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  Speaker 3: how much do you well, what do you look at
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  Speaker 3: when you're on TikTok, What sort of spending decisions might
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  Speaker 3: you make after that? And what sort of money are
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  Speaker 3: we talking about? So we found, for example, that have
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  Speaker 3: to see something on TikTok, about twenty five percent of
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  Speaker 3: regular users went on to spend at a restaurant or
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  Speaker 3: a cafe because they'd seen it on TikTok. Now, again,
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  Speaker 3: the numbers might not be massive there, you know, it's
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  Speaker 3: not like everyone's going out for a two hundred dollars
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  Speaker 3: meal there, but they are starting and it's been because
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  Speaker 3: they've seen something interesting and so that was where that
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  Speaker 3: economic impact has started to be generated through. So we
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  Speaker 3: wanted to look at both the business side of things
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  Speaker 3: but also the user side of things, so we could
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  Speaker 3: properly try to calibrate what a reasonable level of economic
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  Speaker 3: activity coming out the other end might be.
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  Speaker 2: And what do you see growth wise? Is this on
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  Speaker 2: a path to the moon, or this is peaking or
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  Speaker 2: what or we don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's still growing. I mean, having had a
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  Speaker 3: look at the numbers. Of course, we know that TikTok
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  Speaker 3: users se younger, but at the same time some of
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  Speaker 3: the older groups are like forty five plus is seeing
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  Speaker 3: some of the highest growth in terms of use. The
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  Speaker 3: other big one though, especially because we talk about the
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  Speaker 3: likes of tourism and New Zealand quite a lot, is
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  Speaker 3: that there's one billion users of TikTok globally, which means
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  Speaker 3: that for a New Zealand business you can really start
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  Speaker 3: to highlight to a much much larger audience all of
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  Speaker 3: those different opportunities. And let's be clear, New Zealand looks
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  Speaker 3: a whole lot better on screen than if you write
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  Speaker 3: something down and give it a description, and so being
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  Speaker 3: able to access such a large market that really has
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  Speaker 3: I think got a lot more potential in terms of
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  Speaker 3: how people are going to communicate, how they're going to market.
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  Speaker 3: That's where people are. The fact that you know, six
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  Speaker 3: hundred and seventy thousand New Zealanders are making spending decisions
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  Speaker 3: based on what they've seen on TikTok that does show
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  Speaker 3: the opportunity for the fifty percent of businesses that aren't current.
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  Speaker 2: Involve good stuff. Nice to talk to you, Brad brad Olsen,
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  Speaker 2: who's with Memphometrics. Of course, just by way of a correlation,
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  Speaker 2: it's the same size ish one point two billion ish
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  Speaker 2: as our forestry industry, it's the same size ish as
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  Speaker 2: our textile, leather and clothing industry, and it's the same
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  Speaker 2: size as our furniture industry. So depending on your view
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  Speaker 2: of the world, that's either quite big or not as
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  Speaker 2: big as you thought.
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