LSN : Daily Signals : Stat: Southeast Asia is TikTok’s largest advertising audience

Cash App taps Timothée Chalamet for youth-friendly money talk

Cash App, US

US – Cash App has launched an integrated brand campaign featuring Academy Award-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet which aims to foster intergenerational conversations about money and financial literacy.

The campaign, which marks Chalamet’s first partnership with a financial services platform, includes a two-minute commercial spot currently airing in US movie theatres before blockbusters including Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, as well as on Cash App’s social media channels.

The advertisement, directed by Aidan Zamiri and written by Elijah Bynum, humorously depicts Chalamet bridging a financial divide between a father, who prefers antiquated payment methods, and his son who advocates for modern solutions such as Cash App.

‘We wanted to give Timothée a platform to encourage open conversations around money across age groups in a way that felt fresh and authentic to who he is as an artist,’ said Catherine Ferdon, CMO at Cash App. The campaign also features extensive out-of-home advertising in New York City and Los Angeles, alongside limited-edition Cash App Card stamps designed by Chalamet.

For more insight on Gen Z's attitudes to finance, read our Gen Z Now and Next: From Vision to Contradiction and Cultural Capital reports.

Strategic opportunity

As Gen Z inherit wealth, consider how to position yourself as a trusted advisor. Partner with relatable fin-fluencers and create edu-taining content that references memes and trends to grow engagement and relatability

Foresight Friday: Rose Coffey, senior foresight analyst

Hyungkoo Lee, Virtual Beauty, Somerset House, UK

Every Friday, The Future Laboratory team offers an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, senior foresight analyst Rose Coffey discusses the Skims Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap, tanning as a form of rebellion and Somerset House’s Virtual Beauty exhibition.

: This week, Skims entered the beauty space with the sold-out launch of the Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap, which the brand is calling its ‘first-ever face innovation’. The collagen-infused night strap claims to use targeted compression in order to shape and sculpt the face. It taps into the fast-growing collagen market – a theme we explored in our Innovation Debrief 2025: Collagen’s New Frontiers report.

In the spirit of TikTok’s viral morning shed trend, the product joins a growing roster of nocturnal self-optimisation tools, from jaw-lifting bands to mouth tape. Its success highlights how wellness and beauty rituals are increasingly merging with sleep routines through skincare-adjacent products, turning bedrooms into sites of biohacking and self-sculpting.

: In The Atlantic, Yasmin Tayag examines how tanning has become more than an aesthetic choice and is emerging as a symbol of defiance and an ideology in its own right. She cites a survey by the American Academy of Dermatology which found that 52% of Gen Z were unaware of one or more of the risks associated with sunburn.

We spotlighted how brands are encouraging people to protect their skin in our Future Forecast 2025: Beauty report. Yet in the MAHA world – Make America Healthy Again – tanning continues to carry cultural weight as an act of rebellion, complicating the traditional wellness narrative.

: Finally, I visited Somerset House’s Virtual Beauty exhibition, which shows how beauty ideals are being re-coded in the post-internet age. The exhibition reflects a deeper cultural reckoning, one we mapped in The Synthocene Era. As identities become hyper-constructed and curated, the boundaries between authenticity, artifice and aspiration continue to blur.

Quote of the week

‘This exhibition highlights how questions of beauty are intrinsically linked to the screens and devices through which we view ourselves every day, and the altered, enhanced or filtered identities we share via these devices'

Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, Mathilde Friis and Bunny Kinney, co-curators of Virtual Beauty (source: Somerset House)

Stat: Southeast Asia is TikTok’s largest advertising audience

Moin, Indonesia

Asia – Southeast Asia now accounts for nearly a quarter of TikTok’s global advertising audience, according to the Digital 2025: July Statshot report. Thailand leads with more than 80% of the population using TikTok monthly – more than double the global average.

The report from We Are Social and Meltwater reveals that most Southeast Asians watch more online video content each week than the global average of 11 hours and 39 minutes. In the Philippines, users spend more than 20 hours a week watching online videos, with half of that time dedicated to TikToks and Reels. YouTube remains the most widely used video platform globally, with Southeast Asian countries – notably the Philippines (86.2%) and Vietnam (85%) – leading the way.

Social platforms are also central to brand discovery. More than 80% of Vietnamese and Indonesians use them for research, followed by Malaysians and Filipinos. Facebook drives more than 70% of global referral traffic, spiking to 90% in Indonesia.

In Gen Z in Indonesia, we analysed young Indonesians’ high engagement with local influencers and content creators who represent their aspirations and cultural identity, as relatability becomes a key social media currency.

Strategic opportunity

Southeast Asia is a social commerce powerhouse. Develop a TikTok-first retail strategy that merges short-form video, live-stream selling, in-app shopping and interactive promotions, and partner with local creators who reflect Gen Z’s cultural identity