Is TikTok the new crystal ball for consumer insights?

I’m going to say it: if Google search data was the mood board of the 2000s, TikTok is the cultural oracle of today. When Google search data came along, it changed the way brands thought about consumer intent. Suddenly, what people typed into a search bar became more than a record of curiosity; it was a predictive signal of what they might want, need, or buy. 

Today, search continues to be one of the most reliable mirrors of demand. But just as consumer behaviour evolves, so too does the data available to businesses selling everything from high-heeled shoes and lipsticks to yoga mats and sourdough.

Once dismissed as a platform for lip-syncs and viral dances, TikTok has fast become one of the world’s most powerful cultural barometers. What makes it so significant is that it brings something different to many other research methods: that is, speed, texture, and an immediacy that traditional approaches cannot always capture. For a clothes retailer, supermarket, or beauty conglomerate, adding social signals to the consumer insight mix offers a much richer picture of how culture takes shape - and how they can help influence it.

Spotting the tremors 

TikTok works like a cultural seismograph. Every short video, hashtag, or aesthetic is a tremor, signalling shifts in taste, values, and behaviour. Users don’t just say what they like; they share it from their kitchens, gyms, and bathrooms around the world. They experiment, share, remix, and refine. This is culture in motion, captured before it hardens into mainstream behaviour. 

That immediacy matters. While surveys provide depth and validation, TikTok provides a glimpse of the consumer spark - the trial moment, experiment, or idea being road-tested in public. It can complement traditional retail planning, offering researchers and businesses an early signal to investigate further.

From banana yellow to the “anti-rot” movement 

At Campfire, we built SPARK, our proprietary trend detection tool, to make sense of these signals. By analysing TikTok in real time, SPARK identifies the micro-trends that often become tomorrow’s mainstream. Ahead of this autumn, for example, we saw flashes of culture that tell us where consumer demand could well be heading.

Take fashion, for instance. This summer’s butter yellow craze is evolving into a deeper ‘banana yellow’ (driving 1.1 million TikTok views*) and emerging as the perfect transitional colour for the autumn and winter. For retail brands, these early TikTok signals can inform timely product drops around trending colours and influencer briefs around emerging aesthetics.

Over in the wellness space, we also spotted the rise of the so-called ‘anti-rot’ agenda (+66k views), which champions getting dressed up and going out in the colder months. For brands, this could mean messaging around social connection will land strongly as consumers move into the new season. 

On their own, these examples may look like fleeting curiosities. But patterns emerge when you observe them together. That’s when they become leading indicators - subtle hints of what’s about to break into the mainstream.

What TikTok brings to the table

What sets TikTok apart as a dataset is its combination of both scale and intimacy. Millions of contributions give it weight, while the visual, participatory format provides richness and context. It is less abstract than search data and more immediate than survey responses. For researchers, that makes it a uniquely valuable addition to the predictive toolkit.

TikTok adds the cultural layer that provides a wider lens on how desire is forming and spreading from a spark on social media to a purchase in-store. 

Looking ahead

Google showed us its intention. Social listening revealed sentiment. TikTok now shows us behaviour in motion. The challenge is how we best combine the agility of TikTok insights with the wider retail planning cycle to help businesses shift from simply reacting to consumer demand to predicting it.

The brands that act early - adjusting ranges, testing campaigns, or simply paying attention to the signals - will be the ones that meet consumers in the right place at the right time.

Ultimately, TikTok gives us a view of tomorrow in the content people are creating today. For businesses, the task now is to learn how to read it. 

*All predictions are based on TikTok trend tracking via Campfire’s proprietary SPARK tool, which analyses emerging signals and growth patterns via video views. Data covers the 72 hours prior to 20 August 2025.