Vine was short-lived but Snapchat seems to be catching on more than ever, and catching the eyes of many advertisers for that matter. We saw throughout the past couple of years how Vine used 6 second clips to create clever marketing videos, but now the days of Vining are over. The majority of users have opted to just use Snapchat during recent months, thus, marketers have taken on this opportunity and Snapchat finally agreed to allow Sponsored ads on their app.
This isn't the first time Snapchat allows some sort of advertising on their app. At the beginning of the school semester Snapchat added a new feature where people are able to send in their snaps to "Our Story" if their location is close to a music festival, college football game, etc. Our story is able to put the community perspective front and center rather than it just being about an individual's story.
Here's an example from this year's EDC Festival Re-cap on Snapchat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pZeDPfHiBC8
During ACL Fest 2014 I was able to experience this firsthand and was able submit some of my snaps to see if it would get showcased. Unfortunately, thousands of snaps probably got submitted so mine didn't make it to top. However, like I mentioned in the first paragraph, Sponsored ads are now becoming a thing on the app. Something I would have foreseen but what threw me off was the AdAge article that talked about how the pioneer for this effort was "Ouijii" I just couldn't grasp why they'd be the first to start this snapchat ad movement; however, Universal Pictures and agency, Maxus, knew what there target market was and where they're currently on. AdAge quotes Mr. Niel when he says, "We like to select media platforms that are appropriate for our audience. We've been closely following Snapchat and its adoption. It seems to be right at the core of our target audience for the movie "Ouija." So we were glad there was an opportunity to run an ad within Snapchat." Currently the film company and ad agency plans on launching another Sponsored ad for their upcoming Pitch Perfect 2 that's coming out next may. See, this is a movie I would've expected to see as a pioneering Snapchat due to the app's personality, however, I can also see why they took the risk with a lesser known movie.
Overall, I'm pretty excited to see what other ads come out on snapchat and how creative they'll get. I've actually felt like I'm out of the loop with upcoming movies because I don't get to watch regular TV anymore, so hey, maybe these ads will keep me updated.