SNAPCHAT - YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE
February 09, 2016
The proliferation of mobile phones is undeniable. They are everywhere. Consumers are increasingly willing to compromise quality for immediacy in both, their own social media activity and that that they receive from brand’s, thus the polished and perfected images that brands having become so used to communicating are failing to inspire and engage the new age of consumers. Snapchat has been bubbling up since its founding in 2011 and has now hit the mainstream, with 800million ‘snaps’ viewed per day – 12 times and 2 times the number uploaded and shared on Facebook and Instagram respectively (Arthur, 2015). As Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local, described "Snapchat represents the growing trend of erasable media — ephemeral photos, videos and comments which are here one minute, gone the next. Perhaps the thought of everything you post on the internet living forever is too scary a thought for savvy teenagers to bear”. It is the ‘savvy teenagers’, pointed out by Kerpen, that are driving the adoption of Snapchat by brands; In a market ripe with deletist consumers, having the most relevant social platform(s) is the difference between click-throughs and click-offs (Bell, 2015). As Facebook is becoming increasingly used by older generations, teens are increasingly turning away from it, Snapchat offers them a more candid approach to sharing their activity. James Kirkham, global head of social media at Leo Burnett agrees, “The youth audience is incredibly receptive right now to its content. They trust it more than any other social media. They’re sick of Facebook friends with their manicured profiles and flock to Snapchat for its authenticity and its real-time emotional resonance.” (WGSN, 2015). A notable shift in what consumers consider as aspirational has made Snapchat one of the most buzz-worthy marketing tools of 2016, consumers are becoming active creators of content, and increasingly seeing themselves as their own brand. Attainability and relatability are key to resonating with today’s consumer while authentic engagement and branding are the key pillars of successful and resonant marketing for 2016 (Sautner, 2016), arguably making Snapchat the most desirable youth-orientated media outlet (WGSN, 2015).
Snapchat makes up one of our outputs and could possibly be considered the most important as the resonance of the channel for our target market is huge. Gaining an understanding of the enormous prominence of Snapchat has assured us of the potential that it could offer to brands, particularly brands that are targeting young consumers. This has meant that we assigned a larger amount of time to designing and creating the filters as we wanted them to be of a really high quality. Although this was possibly one of the most difficult elements to create, because of the limited experience with the software used (Adobe After Effects), investing the time should pay off for impacting our target market.
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