Storytelling on snapshot! Marketing with Snapchat

The world stood still for a second when the tweet reached the masses at 23:50 (GMT-7) on 21 february. He panicked a huge office complex in Los Angeles, threatens the existence of over 3,000 employees to this day and may have put a little smile on Mark Zuckerberg’s face: Kylie Jenner thinks the new Snapchat design is stupid! An actually trivial statement of a very influential woman marks a new low of the photo messenger founded by Evan Spiegel in 2011. The mobile app loses eight percentage points, or 1.5 billion dollars, in market value after Jenner’s Twitter character assassination and must now quickly become more attractive for investors and advertisers. Bookable story ads, non-skip short ads and branded face filters – how does storytelling works for businesses on Snapchat and what will the Kardashians and the remaining 200 million users think?

Snap for Snap: Function and target group

In view of the number of social media, whose apps fill our homescreens more and more, it would be forgiving not to know the peculiarities of another messenger so well. So, let’s introduce Snapchat briefly: The app, which is exclusively available for smartphones, was launched seven years ago with a revolutionary idea. Photos sent to users will be deleted after they have been viewed once! The application was celebrated as “The Zen of Social Media” – against data storage, against the self-portrayal that will last for eternity. The function to create an own storyline with snapshots was taken over five years later by the competitor Instagram with the Instagram stories (similar with gif stickers). Bit by bit, the developers of Snap Inc. expanded the range. Today, Snapchat is especially popular with teens thanks to fun filters and lenses. Fitting to this the app now launches with Snappables small Augumented Reality games.

An idea for eternity: Storytelling on Snapchat

The format of the storyline, composed of snaps, remains convincing and as Instagram later discovered, predestined for any form of storytelling. It is fair to say that Snapchat invented a new form of storytelling with the idea of transient posts, or at least opened the doors for them. No other messenger got so close to the real life of its users with its concept. There is no third attempt for a photo, no annoying finding of hashtags – the design of the posts with special effects is playful, almost geniously adapted to the organic communication between the users. If companies switch “snap ads”, which are shown between the stories of the users, they should adapt them to the authentic style, otherwise the break to the personal threatens to be to strikt.  Nevertheless, companies still have the opportunity to show their faces, to have a look behind the scenes, to introduce people; and all this in a carefree and funny atmosphere. On the other hand, it also means that the app is not suitable for all industries, and also that bad content marketing immediately catches the eye. Snapchat recently opened its platform for Programmatic Advertising. But this is not the only change that is supposed to bring the American company more revenue again.

Ads to play with: New advertising formats also in Germany

An innovative storytelling tool is that users spend time interactively with a company and, in the best case, incorporate the result into their private storyline. The company presents itself as a mentor who helps to be funny, beautiful or just cool. The app also offers the same for filters for large events and events and creates many small influencers for business partners. In cooperation with Adidas, Snapchat shows in the United States where the road can lead in Germany. The model is called “Shoppable AR” and combines the lenses with e-commerce.

Conclusion: To put it in a nutshell

When you dive into the world of Snap Inc., you often stumble across innovations. And not only in the AR or marketing area. The company, whose basic idea that of a storyteller was, continues to set itself apart from competitors such as Facebook or Instagram. So what is the reason why only groups advertise on Snapchat? Unfortunately, it’s not cheap. An average five-digit budget must be available in order to use the new tools. Nevertheless, the app is suitable for brands that want to present themselves communicatively and openly. And by the way: Kylie Jenner also uses it again.