TikTok tells advertisers: We're here to stay

"TikTok is here — we are here," Khartoon Weiss, the company's vice president of global business solutions, told a packed warehouse of advertisers Tuesday in Manhattan.

- SAPNA MAHESHWARI

"We are absolutely confident in our platform and confident in the future of this platform," she declared.

That statement was the closest TikTok advertising executives got to addressing the app's uncertain fate in the United States in the company's annual spring pitch to marketers. Under a federal law and executive order, the app is set to be banned in the country next month if the Chinese owner of the company, ByteDance, does not sell it.

Hundreds of representatives from companies like L'Oreal and Unilever and various ad agencies scrambled to find seats for an event hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj that heavily emphasised TikTok's role as a cultural juggernaut.

TikTok was more than a video platform, Mr Minhaj told the crowd. TikTok was "the cultural moments you talk about at work, the jokes you talk about in your group chat, the language you use in your everyday life," he said.