Corey McMullan may not be much of a football fan, but that didn’t make it any less exciting to be featured in a commercial for TikTok that aired during the Super Bowl Sunday night.
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Corey McMullan may not be much of a football fan, but that didn’t make it any less exciting to be featured in a commercial for TikTok that aired during the Super Bowl Sunday night.
“I was really excited,” he told OBJ on Monday, the morning after the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22.
Not that the result mattered much to McMullan: “I had nachos and beer and pizza and we all sat down and watched the commercial and then shut off the game.”
McMullan has become an unexpected social media star as the face of the TikTok account for his family’s Smiths Falls business, McMullan Appliance & Mattress.
In December, the social media platform launched its TikTok Sparks Good campaign, featuring McMullan alongside two other Canadian creators. The result was a 60-second spot that gave a behind-the-scenes look at McMullan’s journey to digital stardom.
“Early on, I was really shocked that TikTok felt I was doing something different with the platform,” he said. “They kept involving me in their small business initiatives, even though I didn’t sell stuff like socks or coffee – I can’t participate in that. But they felt I had a great message and I was having such huge success. Plus, I just love doing it.”
When the campaign first aired, occasionally appearing on Sunday night football streams or during TV news ad breaks, McMullan said he thought that was the end of it. Then he found out his ad would be featured on Canada’s Super Bowl stream.
When asked if he’s a football fan, he said, “Not at all. I never watch it. But my contact at TikTok, he texted me and he said, ‘Big news. You’re going to be on the Super Bowl (broadcast).’”
While he isn’t privy to the inner workings of the campaign, he said, “I think they knew all this negativity was going to hit with the government and the banning, and I think they started planning before that happened, to put positivity out in the marketplace.”
In the five years since his TikTok account launched in 2020, McMullan said it has amassed a following of 467,000. For a small business like his, it’s not a number to sneeze at. By contrast, the business has 8,000 followers on Facebook, 7,000 on Instagram, and 10,000 on YouTube.
“They’re good numbers, but it doesn’t compare to TikTok,” he said.
For Canadian creators, the TikTok model isn’t lucrative on its own. Unlike in the U.S., where users can join a program to monetize their content and earn money from views, Canadians rely on it more as a marketing tool.
McMullan joined the family business during the pandemic and decided to try out TikTok and its video editor on a whim. While similar videos garnered no views on Facebook, he said numbers on TikTok shot up rapidly. They grew further when McMullan started featuring himself as a personable spokesperson for the business.
“It’s had a tremendous impact on the business, because we have a zero-dollar marketing expense now. I don’t even do Google now and we’ve almost doubled our retail sales since we joined TikTok,” he said.
“When I started narrating, people became very emotionally attached. We had a guy drive from Sudbury to buy a washer-dryer. They’re driving past all these other stores that sell the same product and coming to our store because they feel that they can support me. I’ve been able to humanize the business.”
It hasn’t just been good for the business, but also for McMullan himself. His work selling pricier items such as dishwashers and washing machines has garnered attention from brands who now want to work with him on their social media strategies, leading to the creation of his own business, McMullan Media.
“Personally, it’s been life-changing,” he said.
