American Express Taps TikTok To Reach Gen Z Shoppers

American Express has teamed with TikTok for the “#ShopSmall Accelerator,” a program designed to help small businesses reach Gen Z shoppers.

According to a Monday (Nov. 14) news release, the partnership coincides with “Small Business Saturday,” the AmEx-sponsored holiday that follows Black Friday.

Beginning Monday, the #ShopSmall Accelerator will include an offer that lets eligible small business owners earn a $100 TikTok advertising credit.

“In addition, small business owners will be given access to tools and resources to think like TikTok creators, including a tutorial…on how their businesses can stand out on the platform,” American Express said.

The program lets business owners hear from TikTok lifestyle creators and business owners on how to use the social media platform as a search engine, drive user engagement and take advantage of trends, hashtags and communities.

Elizabeth Rutledge, American Express’ chief marketing officer, said the program will help merchants reach Gen Z TikTok users, two-thirds of whom have shopped from a small business upon finding it on the platform’s “For You” page.

Recent research by PYMNTS found that Gen Z consumers are almost as tech-driven as their millennial counterparts when it comes to shopping.

“Super Apps for the Super Connected,” a PayPal and PYMNTS collaboration, found that 13% of Gen Zs qualify as super-connected “tech-driven” consumers, coming in behind millennials by just 5% and catching up quickly.

Their smartphone-centered lives are a perfect match for super apps that fuse shopping, dining, travel, banking, payments and other offerings into one place.

“Bridge millennials and Gen Z consumers are far more likely than the average consumer to want to use a super app, with 35% of each generation expressing high levels of interest in one,” the study said. “It is no coincidence that these highly online age groups also tend to be more interested in using super apps.”

The American Express/TikTok partnership comes one day after TikTok launched a shopping venture of its own, expanding its TikTok Shop eCommerce feature to the U.S.