Snapchat: A TV-Like Experience Unlike Any TV Before

On “I Want My Snapchat TV ,“ Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier and Lucas Shaw breaks down the ephemeral messaging service as having an ad model “that resembles TV and costs advertisers twice as much as Hulu or YouTube.”

They show a chart with a startling comparison of Snapchat’s demographics to that of other social media networks:

The question then remains: Relative to YouTube and Hulu, is it worth it to pay for Snapchat’s TV-like ad model, especially when faced with the challenge of having to tailor ads not only for the millennial demographic, but completely native to Snapchat’s mobile platform?

The issue for advertisers is that they, too, have to tailor ads specifically for Snapchat and make sure the ads and affiliated channels hold viewers’ attention, says Craig Atkinson, chief digital officer at PHD, an ad agency owned by marketing giant Omnicom Group. Because Snapchat users have to actively choose to watch a channel, “the burden is even greater on us to make sure that what we’re doing is interesting,” says Atkinson, who tells advertisers to regard Snapchat spending as research and development.

Another issue that’s been brought up by industry folks: It’s possible that Snapchat is not sustainable because users may jump to the next hot messaging app:

The company’s biggest challenge may be to keep its fickle young users from migrating to the next hot messaging app, says Rebecca Lieb, an analyst at Altimeter Group. “Snapchat is a darling this year, but how about next year, when the novelty wears off?” she says. “It’s not sustainable.” Still, the six-year-old company’s audience grew 62 percent in 2014, according to researcher ComScore.

What I think about this matter is actually perfectly highlighted in the same article:

Grace Lee, a freshman at the University of North Carolina, says that if anything, the app is too ubiquitous in her circles. “I feel like I have to use it just to be in contact with people,” she says. “You’ll see people at a concert or with their friends at a party, and they’re taking video for Snapchat the whole night.”

This one is from a post in Medium’s Backchannel by 19-year old Andrew Watts:

Snapchat is where we can really be ourselves while being attached to our social identity. Without the constant social pressure of a follower count or Facebook friends, I am not constantly having these random people shoved in front of me. Instead, Snapchat is a somewhat intimate network of friends who I don’t care if they see me at a party having fun.

Snapchat is ubiquitous and intimate. The first chart which indicates 71% of Americans ages 18 to 29 use the service is a ridiculous metric and one that brands and advertisers can’t simply ignore. The fact that such a service has stickiness to a particular generation is a powerful opportunity for brands because they can capture them at a very early stage in consumer loyalty.

Yes, it’s true that that there’s a chance that Snapchat may not be sustainable and might face issues in the long term of converting the next generation of users to want to use its service (a challenge that Facebook is currently experiencing), but Snapchat’s biggest advantage is it’s not just a messaging app. Instead, they’ve designed a completely immersive experience to be a different iteration of watching television—through the power of mobile, it’s completely with you all the time, and moreover, you get to be a part of the narrative. Messaging just happens to be one of its functions, but really, the viewing aspect is what sets it apart, and they’ve enabled it in a way that is intimate and super engaging for its target market.

Willa Paskin of Slate goes further to argue that it’s the next version of passive TV consumption in an article called “Snapchannel Surfing”:

But Snapchat channels are a throwback to the couch potato mode of passive consumption. Every day, Cosmo and CNN and their ilk have selected five or so stories for you to flip through, read, watch, or skip. The content may also be available on the Web, but consuming it here is even easier: You don’t have to search for anything, click on anything, seek out anything. It has already been picked out for you. Everywhere you and your phone are has become the proverbial couch.

I’m not a heavy Snapchat user; actually, I don’t send any snaps at all. But from time to time, I find myself curious of what the channels are showing and what things are under “Live,” especially during big mainstream events like award shows, championship games, and the like. I just saw very short ads from Coke Zero and Powerade while watching a “Live” feed. (What’s interesting about these two brands? Both owned by the Coca-Cola Company whose distribution is concentrated especially in college campuses through vending machines and fountain drink stations.) They weren’t unobtrusive and didn’t feel like TV ads at all which are usually annoying and break you off your attention from the current program. Rather, it felt a part of the entire experience.

Yes, it’s another platform to experiment on. If it’s worth it, only brands can truly answer and justify that. But Snapchat is onto something, and it’s unlike any other ad platform that exists today because it’s extremely native to the dynamics of the service, giving it a unique edge of its own and why it’s able to attract its core audience of young people.