Last June 17, members of the Aboitiz Integrated Communications Workgroup (ICW) had the opportunity to attend an exclusive learning session with TikTok. As Aboitiz Foods, we came in curious, eager to explore how we could better optimize the platform for our brands, tap into its creative tools, and discover new ways to connect with our audiences.
Social media is ever-evolving, making relevance both a challenge and a creative opportunity. With TikTok as the Philippines’ most-used platform, this ICW session was crucial. It provided us marketers with a fresh understanding of how to intentionally leverage TikTok’s features and tools to tailor content, driving deeper engagement and stronger results beyond simple brand building.
For our producer brands, this opened exciting doors. Maxime, our pet food brand, is just beginning its TikTok journey, but we already see potential in creating more out-of-the-box content and collaborating with pet-loving creators to drive awareness and connection. Meanwhile, The Good Meat, our retail meat brand, is actively using TikTok Shop and producing vertical, recipe-based videos. TikTok Live has also proven effective for real-time engagement and sales. The workshop’s insights into how the Philippine market interacts with the platform gave us more ideas for refining these efforts.
At a group level, Aboitiz Foods is exploring TikTok’s potential for employer branding and sustainability storytelling. As we aim to build regional awareness as a leading food and agribusiness company, TikTok offers a powerful, fresh way to bring these narratives to life.
This session underscored the importance of an integrated content strategy across all brands, emphasizing balance: ideally, 50% of campaign content should feel native to the platform. TikTok has evolved beyond fleeting trends into a robust platform for storytelling, community building, and commerce, challenging brands to be more authentic, creative, and responsive.
One pleasant surprise? Discovering how AI is embedded into TikTok’s platform. Tools like Symphony Assistant simplify the content creation process, from scriptwriting to storyboarding, helping us save time while staying on-trend. The experience showed us how AI, when paired with creative thinking, can elevate the work we do and help us produce content more efficiently.
“What truly excited me was discovering the AI-powered tools TikTok has developed. These tools can turn what used to take days of filming and editing into viable content in just minutes. From scriptwriting and editing to keyword optimization and content planning, TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio makes it easier than ever for brands to produce high-quality content consistently,”said Rhett Chiu, E-Commerce Supervisor, Pet Food.
And to our surprise, we ended the day on a high note — we won the video creation challenge! (Check out our winning entry on the left.) We were tasked with creating a TikTok video for one of our brands, and within under 30 minutes, we produced a fun and engaging piece for Maxime Elite Cat. With the help of Symphony Assistant and strong collaboration, we pulled together a short video (see below) that showcased the product’s benefits, and of course, the cuteness of cats.
It was also a great exercise in living out the Aboitiz core values of Innovation and Teamwork. Everyone brought their unique strengths to the table, and the result reminded us that creativity thrives when we work together. This pushed us to think outside the box, to hook viewers within seconds, and leave a lasting impression.
“We came into the workshop from different teams; marketing, communications, digital, and sales, each with our own roles and perspectives. But the hands-on, experimental nature of the ICW naturally brought us together.” shared Dani Capinding, Digital Marketing Supervisor, Marketing Agribusiness, Aboitiz Foods. “The collaborative environment encouraged us to step out of our silos and co-create using TikTok’s tools. It didn’t feel like work; it felt like a creative jam session where ideas flowed freely and everyone’s input mattered. ”
As part of our Great Transformation 2025 journey, Aboitiz is embracing its evolution into a true Techglomerate, placing innovation, technology, and AI at the core of customer engagement and growth, this learning session was a key milestone. It not only equipped our teams with the confidence to integrate TikTok and AI into workflows but also reinforced that being a Techglomerate is fundamentally about embracing a mindset of experimentation, continuous learning, and transforming emerging trends into actionable ideas.
Overall, the workshop was an eye-opening experience for our team. It gave us a deeper appreciation of how TikTok, especially its built-in AI tools, can simplify and elevate the way we create content. These tools open up exciting possibilities for us to produce engaging, relevant stories more efficiently, even with limited resources.
In this transformation, AI is playing an increasingly important role, helping us become more agile, data-driven, and creative in how we deliver experiences. This shift is showcased in the recent learning session, an event Aboitiz Equity Ventures further explores in their story “ICW explores AI-driven storytelling with TikTok PH,” As we continue to evolve in the digital space, TikTok provides us with another way to connect meaningfully with our audiences, with creativity, agility, and purpose at the heart of everything we do.
