TikTok said on Feb. 26 it will hold 'Agency Championship with Kakaofriends,' the first domestic event in which live agencies compete against each other.

The event, running from March 2 to 15, was designed to invigorate the live content ecosystem and lay the groundwork for sustainable growth through a structure in which creators, agencies and viewers participate together. TikTok plans to expand agencies' experience operating live streams through various participatory programs while promoting creative activity and community participation at the same time.

Live creators participating in the championship will accumulate points through broadcast time and dia (virtual gift items), competing with creators affiliated with the same agency. Creators' results are then aggregated to calculate an overall score for each agency, with preliminaries and a final to determine the winning agency. The structure was designed to highlight collaboration and operational capabilities at the agency level beyond individual activities.

TikTok will also seek synergy by combining the creativity of TikTok Live agencies and creators with popular Kakaofriends characters. During the event, the 'like' icon in TikTok Live will appear in participating creators' live content as 'Apeach,' one of Kakaofriends' main characters, adding an element of fun to broadcasting and viewing. TikTok will also run an Apeach filter challenge to encourage participating creators to produce short-form content, expand links between live and short-form, and broaden the scope of content activity. It will then select creators and agencies by lottery and give out Kakaofriends goods to strengthen creative motivation and support diverse content production.

The championship is divided into 5 leagues by agency size: Diamond, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Rising Star. This is intended to widen participation opportunities beyond top-ranked agencies to include agencies in growth stages, and to build an ecosystem in which agencies and creators of all sizes can grow fairly by providing goals and rewards suited to activity scale.

The winning agency in each league will receive various benefits including a Kakaofriends special goods package, promotional coupons and creator recruitment cards. In particular, winning agencies in the Diamond, Gold, Silver and Bronze leagues will be given an opportunity for large outdoor advertising exposure near Samseong Station in Seoul in April, to help expand agency awareness and broaden the base for creator inflows.

TikTok Live is currently available in 150 countries and provides features that allow creators and global viewers to communicate in real time without barriers, including a subtitle translation function. It supports various content formats, and new content is being produced through collaboration with live agencies. Through partnerships with various industries, it is delivering a richer cultural experience to global users and expanding the creative potential of domestic intellectual property (IP) within the TikTok Live ecosystem.