In June of 2016, Snapchat, a popular social media app that allows users to share photos and stories with friends that disappear after a set period of time, allowed advertisers to begin placing skippable ads in users' stories, as a way to reach the app's 158 million daily users.
Part of Snapchat's struggle with convincing brands to utilize the popular app for its paid advertising has been first convincing them of the value of utilizing vertical video--a form that is best suited for the format of the app because audiences do not need to turn their phones to be able to view the message.
Advertisers were not quick to adapt to the vertical video trend that Snapchat advocates for because it requires shooting materials with more than one camera, and logistical reconfigurations during production, according to Bloomberg.
However, the vertical video trend may be set to take off, now that Instagram, the photo sharing app owned by Facebook, introduced a story feature in August of 2016, and will now allow brands to place ads within it. Now, brands that brave the logistical and expense challenges of producing vertical videos will be able to reach the 158 million Snapchat users as well as Instagram's 400 million.
In an interview with Bloomberg magazine, head of consumer engagement at PepsiCo., Kenny Mitchell, said that he thinks that vertical video is going to become more prominent this year, and that PepsiCo. is "considering it from the outset," when building its advertising campaigns.
While one might have imagined that Instagram introducing a story feature to its app, something that prior to the introduction was a feature exclusive to Snapchat, would hurt Snapchat's user count and revenue-making ability, it turns out that Instagram's story feature may have made advertising on Snapchat more appealing to major brands.
No comments:
Post a Comment