Tag: snapchat

Facebook Launches Snapchat Clone Features On Its Main App

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook added new Snapchat-inspired features to its main app after launching them on Instagram, Messenger, and Whatsapp over the past year. Now users of Facebook’s flagship mobile app will be able to use 3D live camera filters, decorate their photos with drawings and stickers, sending disappearing private messages to each other, and share their photos and videos via a disappearing Story feature that works identically to Instagram Stories, which itself is a near copy of Snapchat Stories. Story updates from your Facebook friends will appear as circles atop your News Feed as in Instagram, and they will automatically vanish after 24 hours of posting.

What Brands Need To Do
As we noted when Facebook launched Messenger Day, the social network is doing everything in its power to curb Snapchat’s rapid growth and defend its ground in mobile messaging by mimicking Snapchat’s camera-first approach to app design. And so far it seems to be working, with reports claiming the popularity of Instagram Stories and Snapchat’s slowing user growth.

We are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of the primary input sources of our digital life. Beyond the visual communication features pioneered by Snapchat, we are also seeing some brands get in on with the trend. For instance, Olay created a Skin Advisor platform that offers skin consultations and product recommendations by analyzing the selfies users took. The surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will need to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer behaviors.

 

Source: Facebook

Header image courtesy of Facebook Newsroom

Snapchat Debuts Live Video Ad For Turner

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat continues to experiment with new ad products, as it aired its first live-streaming ad last night for Turner network to promote TruTV’s “Upscale with Prentice Penny” series. Turner ran the ad spot during a red carpet event for the show, which invites users to swipe up on the ad to watch a 360-degree live stream of the event, which offers viewers a behind-the-scenes look. After the live event ended, Turner also ran Snap Ads throughout the evening that redirect users to watch a trailer for the series.

What Brands Need To Do
This is a commendable attempt on Snapchat’s part to bring livestreaming into its ad offerings, injecting a sense of immediacy that goes well with Snapchat’s now-or-never philosophy of phenomenal messages. It also serves as the latest example of brands exploring the unconventional ad products that Snapchat offers. Just last Friday, whiskey brand Jameson ran branded Snapchat geofilters at 75 bar districts around the country to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. As Snapchat doubles down on its ad business as its user growth start to slow, it is time for brands to reconsider their media mix and consider adjust the ad budget to include it to reach mobile customers where they already are.

 

Source: Variety

 

Snapchat Invades Homescreen With New Bitmoji Widgets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat is trying a new way to make its service easily accessible for Snap-addicted users. The latest update of the popular messaging app, for both iOS and Android, comes with a new Bitmoji widget. Users who opt to activate the widget will get a panel of Bitmojis –  personalized avatars that users can customize based on their appearances – representing their most frequently “snapped” friends, which they can start chatting with by simply tapping on one of the Bitmojis. On iOS, this shortcut widget is accessible from the “Today” view in Notification Center, which can be pulled down from homescreen or the lock screen. while on Android it’s a homescreen widget.

What Brands Need To Do
This new addition comes as Snapchat puts an increased focus on private messaging, and the shortcut access may just help it encourages more off-the-cuff sharing among users. By creating Bitmoji-based buttons for each friend, Snapchat is able to customize the shortcuts and put some friendly faces on them, literally. All brands looking to connect with mobile customers can learn a thing or two from Snapchat’s personalized approach and apply it to offering customers easy access to products and services. For example, a travel brand should consider creating an app widget that enables travellers to check for flight and hotel availabilities with the destination and airline selections customized based on their profile or most recent searches.

 

Source: TechCrunch

How Hyatt Leverages Snapchat Spectacles For Branded Content From Employee POVs

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Hyatt becomes the latest brand to embrace Spectacles, the camera-equipped connected sunglasses from Snap Inc., for creating marketing content. As part of its global campaign “World of Hyatt,” the international hotel chain has given away eight pairs of Spectacles to employees at different hotel locations around the world to produce branded video content from their unique POVs. The content they produce will be shared internally as well on Hyatt’s social media channels selectively.

What Brands Need To Do
Previously, Toyota and L’Oreal have also tapped Spectacles to produce branded content. Hyatt’s approach differs from those two brands, which both handed the Spectacles over to social influencers at their respective events, in that it has a broader, international perspective and focuses on capturing the normal, day-to-day happenings at Hyatt properties around the world. Spectacles are great at capturing the kind of candid, off-the-cuff moments, in a circular format that is especially suited for Snapchat but can also be posted to other social channels. Brands wishing to add more authenticity to their branded content and enrich their Snapchat video content should consider using Spectacles.  

Beyond content creation, the popularization of Spectacles also signals that we are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of the primary input sources of our digital life. Beyond Snapchat, Mastercard is now allowing app users in Europe to authenticate their payments with a selfie, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently launched a digital campaign that uses facial recognition technology to create personalized travel recommendations and offer tailored travel packages. As these examples indicate, the surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will need to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer behaviors.

 

Source: Business Wire

Header image courtesy of Hyatt’s YouTube

Snapchat Spectacles Now Widely Available Via Online Shop

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
After several months of using pop-up vending machines to sell its first hardware product, Snap Inc. has made its camera-integrated sunglasses Spectacles widely available for purchase via Spectacle.com. All three colors are available for $130 a pair – keeping with the retail pricing of the pop-up vending machines – with an estimated delivery time of 2 to 4 weeks. Snap also says the elusive vending machines will return in a series new locations after a brief break.

What Brands Need To Do
In its filing for IPO, Snap indicated its intention to broaden the roll-out of Spectacles. Making it available via a dedicated ecommerce site is certainly a big step in that direction. Spectacles presents an interesting new tool for brands to create Snapchat-native video content, which brands such as Toyota and L’Oreal have started doing as part of their social influencer strategies. More brands need to align their branded content production with the ongoing trend towards mobile-native, camera-first media creation and consumption habits. When the consumers are just as likely to point their camera at things they find interesting and take a video of it to share on social channels, brands need to find an authentic way to take advantage of this trend to generate share-worthy content and engage with selfie-happy customers.

If you have yet to experience the magic that is Snapchat Spectacles, the Lab has a couple of pairs that you can try on yourself to gain a hands-on understanding of the great “un-bundling” happening in the mobile space.

 

Source: AdWeek

A+E Networks To Develop Original Content Series For Snapchat

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
A+E Networks announced on Friday that it will be developing an original dating series for Snapchat, as the ephemeral messaging app continues its transformation into a mobile video content destination. The series, titled Second Chance, marks the app’s first network-produced show not based on an existing TV franchise. Snapchat has ordered eight episodes, which will be available for its users in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia in April. The show is the first of a larger multi-show development deal between A+E, its in-house branded content agency 45th & Dean, and Snap Inc.

What Brands Need To Do
As Snapchat’s ad business start to catch up to its popularity, the company now has more resources to spend on content so as to not only compete for more ad dollars with not just from leading sellers of digital ads like Facebook and Google, but from TV advertisers as well. And with this original series and more to come, it is surely betting big on video content. Therefore, it is time for brands to reconsider their media mix and consider adjust the ad budget to include emerging global channels like Snapchat so as to reach a global audience at scale.

 

 

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Snapchat Updates Ad Platform, Rolls Out “Snapcodes” That Open Websites

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat launched a revamped ad platform on Tuesday with some nods to the ad tech platform of Facebook. Snapchat first opened up its ad API in October to enable brands advertisers to purchase ads at scale, conduct A/B testing, and receive real-time analytics. The new ad platform adds six new API partners as part of this announcement, bringing the total to 15. Snapchat has also inked partnerships with five third-party ad tech providers, including mParticle, Kochava and LiveRamp, to facilitate audience-matching campaigns.

In related Snapchat news, the messaging app also updated its “Snapcode” feature to allow all users to generate the proprietary QR-codes that now can not only ink to Snapchat profiles, but also opens designated web urls via an in-app browser. Whenever users take a “snap” of a Snapcode, a pop-up window prompts them to either open the ink. Snapchat will also provide in-app analytics for Snapcodes that are scanned for more than 100 times, including the total number of scans over the past three months, as well as the percentage of people who opened the link after scanning it.

What Brands Need To Do
Snapchat introduced the Snapcodes for user profiles in January 2015 to let users add each other without having to type out usernames. Soon, many brands and publishers started using Snapcodes in their social media profiles to draw attention to their respective Snapchat account. Throughout 2016, brands like Sprite, FOX network, and Universal Pictures featured customized Snapcodes in their billboard ads and packaging to drive mobile users to check out more branded content on Snapchat. Therefore, this expansion of Snapcode functions should come as a welcome addition to brands as it opens up more possibilities for brands to incorporate it in their campaigns to bridge the print ads and the digital assets.

According to Snapchat Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan, the average Snapchat user opens the app 18 times per day and spends 25-30 minutes a day in the app. Now with the added support for ad buying, Snapchat took another big step in improving its ad products to match its rapid growth. Brands need to consider getting on Snapchat to reach its young-skewing users via not only standard video ads, but also more unconventional ad units such as custom Geofilters and branded selfie lenses.

 

Source: TechCrunch & Marketing Land

Warner Bros. Taps Branded Puzzle-Game Lens To Engage Snapchat Users

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Warner Bros. is the first brand to use Snapchat’s recently added puzzle-game Lens to engage with users. As part of its promotional campaign for the upcoming movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the studio created a Snapchat Lens that would overlay a crown and a robe on the selfies and turn them into an interactive mini-puzzle game where users move tiles around to reassemble the edited selfies. This sponsored Lens first ran on Saturday.

What Brands Need To Do
This serves as the latest example of brands exploring the unconventional ad products that Snapchat offers in hopes of connecting with mobile users. While studios buying sponsored Snapchat Lens is not exactly new, (last May, for example, 20th Century Fox bought the first-ever Snapchat Lens takeover ad to promote its X-Men movie.) this gamified Lens from Warner Bros. brought some interactivity into the mix to further drive engagement.

As Snapchat’s ad business start to catch up to its rapid growth, the company is presenting brands with a lot of interesting opportunities to explore what the future of mobile advertising looks like. Therefore, it is time for brands to reconsider their media mix and consider adjust the ad budget to include emerging global channels like Snapchat so as to reach customers at scale.

 

Source: Variety

Snapchat Let Brands Target Users Based On Third-Party Data

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following its introduction of sequential video ad yesterday, Snapchat announced today that it is enabling brand advertisers to target users based on third-party data. The popular messaging app follows the lead of Google and Facebook and started working with Oracle Data Cloud to help marketers plug in offline purchase data, such as from supermarket loyalty cards, to improve the relevance of their ad targeting as well as measure offline attributions of their Snapchat campaigns. Brands such as STX Entertainment, Kia, and The Honest Company are testing the new ad-targeting tool.

What Brands Need To Do
This new targeting product brings vast improvement to Snapchat’s ad operations, which has been quickly catching up to the app’s exploding popularity. With this new tool, marketers will be able to zero in on their potential customers and see if their Snapchat ads resulted in real-world sales. As Snapchat continues to expand its user base and improve its ad products, it is an important social marketing channel that brand marketers need to consider in their media planning and develop a strategy for.

 

Source: AdWeek

Snapchat Introduces Sequential Advertising Package

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat has reportedly started pitching brands on Sequential Messaging, its newest video ad product that allows brands to show a number of 10-second video ads in succession within a Discover channel. The company says that sequenced messaging is open to all advertisers, but it is only sold directly through Snapchat at premium prices and not available through its API. Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures have both bought sequenced messaging to promote their respective new releases.

What Brands Need To Do
Sequential messaging is nothing new to TV advertisers. With each new video ad product, Snapchat is looking more and more like a TV disrupter as it funnels the global user attention into a dozen or so publisher content channels and countless user-generated Stories. As Snapchat’s ad business start to catch up to its rapid growth, the company is getting ready to compete for more ad dollars with not just from leading sellers of digital ads like Facebook and Google, but from TV advertisers as well. Therefore, it is time for brands to reconsider their media mix and consider adjust the ad budget to include emerging global channels like Snapchat so as to reach customers at scale.

 

Source: AdWeek