Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel seems to be everywhere at the moment. Most recently (and kind of inexplicably) in a video posted to Snapchat’s official YouTube page yesterday. He’s there to tell the world what it is the app does. Never mind it’s been launched for four years or anything. And never mind those teal walls. Getting a little anti-tech, Spiegel weilds a Sharpie to explain why younger demographics love the app and a bit about the design. Since we’re pretty sure he’s a genius, we’re going to go with the idea that this scenario is a clever, low-budget, look-we’re-still-a-start-up, share-me-on-your-blogs marketing ploy. It worked. But on a positive note, it’s refreshing to see a tech company ditch the jargon and get analogue(ish).
Spiegel says: “"Most social media has all of your pictures and videos in reverse chronological order, so you see the end before you see the beginning," he said. "But on Snapchat, if you're looking at a birthday party, you get to watch the birthday unfold — beginning, middle and end — which really gives it a familiar feeling because that's the way we've been telling stories forever”.
He explains the three-screen interface – camera, communication, content – although somewhat tellingly leaves out the new Discover mechanism that’ll be the focus of his time in Cannes. In fact, it’s the ability of Snapchat to weave a succinct, but engaging, tale that’ll be part of why Snapchat is so appealing to content marketers and advertisers. After being interviewed by AdWeek, ahead of Cannes Lion, Spiegel revealed his nerves at pitching to over 6000 influencers.
And what a pitch, Snapchat has a userbase of over 100 million, who are a key demographic of young consumers. As tech entrepreneurs provide tantalising digital platforms for advertisers, Spiegel is top talent and selling sponsored video space (especially now their prices are more affordable). He’s also keen to avoid that dogged feeling that targeted adverts can sometimes have (look, Made, sometimes we just don’t want to buy that admittedly lovely, but far-too-big sofa). So we can all remember that he said “"We're going to stay away from building really extensive profiles on people because that's just bad and doesn't feel very good”, if suddenly things start to change on the app.
Credit: AdWeek
He’ll be an interesting speaker to catch at Cannes, with opinions on everything from why you should be holding your phone vertically to take photos to fixing Twitter. So, we’re pretty sure we’ll be hearing more about the ‘3V’ approach to digital content (that’s ‘vertical, video and views’ for the uninitiated) and look forward to seeing just how profitable this already heavily valued ($15B!) app can become. All eyes on Evan.
