The selfie. We all take them, whether we’re on vacation, attending a sporting event, or just want to show the world whatever we’re doing at the time, to capture us “in the moment.” And now, in its latest move in advertising, Snapchat wants to take selfies to another level.
The Financial Times recently reported that the company has begun offering sponsored “lenses” on its service, which enables users to add graphics, such as big eyes or vomiting rainbows, to their photos and videos that are shared with other users.
The ad format rolled out a couple of weeks ago, and Snapchat is asking companies to pay $750,000 for a one-day use of the program with their particular products. This is during “big name” holidays like Halloween and Christmas. The rest of the year, the charge will only be $450,000 a day.
That’s pretty steep, but Snapchat is no stranger to charging big bucks for advertising on its service which some companies showed hesitation over. Regardless, it’s proven to be a worthy investment, as we’ve noted in the past, thanks to Snapchat’s millions of users. Even if the message is only temporary, it’s still sounded loud and clear for them to see.
A recent campaign for iHeartRadio, for instance, managed to nail 340 million impressions over two days, while other popular creators, such as Gary Rojas and ScottySire, manage to wrangle an average of 300,000 to 400,000 views per Snapchat Story.
The introduction of such a program introduces a personal touch to the service, similar to other ones that have been rolled out in the past, in the hopes of optimizing the user’s service so that they can add something personal to it. Companies can easily add items from their products that would find use in videos and photos, such as a biking helmet for a popular motorcycle chain, or characters from a popular video game. (These are merely examples, but you can see how easily they would work.)
We’ll see just how effective this program is and more importantly, who buys in over the next few months.
