Snapchat will let Brands Advertise on Your Face

Snapchat – Sponsored Lenses

Snapchat will be launching a new advertising format which will enable brands to advertise on people’s selfies. This features is known as `Sponsored lenses’, a latest attempt in Snapchat in order to get revenue from its audience comprising of the youth.Snapchat has launched its first new lenses feature in September, permitting users to cover animations on their faces comprising of massive heart eyes, wrinkles as well as vomit rainbows.

The lenses feature seems active while taking a selfie. Tapping and holding on the reflected image of the face tends to instantly outline map of it and prompts to pick from eight various interactive filter which ranges from simple Photo Booth-style effects to the ones with animations and sound.

Each new ones tend to replace an old one each day and can be utilised on photos or videos. Snapchat has now signed a number of appealing parties which will be replacing vomit rainbows as well as old people’s faces with sponsored animations. As per The Financial Times, it is said that the first of these lenses would probably make its appearance on the platform in time for Halloween, though there has been no indication on which brands would be on board.

Developing New Sponsored Animation

According to a spokeswoman from Snapchat who informed FT states that `the sponsored lenses enable Snapchatters to express themselves and connect with a brand in a really creative and dynamic way’. Another source had apparently reported that Snapchat has been charging up to $750,000 for brands to reach its whole user-base during the course of a big holiday or $450,000 on any normal day.

Moreover, the addition of sponsored content would be added over the top of selfish with personal snaps that would leave some with a feeling of discomfort. Snapchat would probably be developing new sponsored animation and the FT claims Hollywood studios would probably be the first to sign up.

This does not seem to be the first move into in-app advertising of Snapchat. It had teamed up earlier in the year, with communication super group WPP and the Daily Mail to operate on a content marketing collaboration known as Truffle Pig. Besides this, it has also been trailing advertisements in Discover news services such as CNN and Cosmopolitan since January 2015.

Launched Around Halloween

The latest sponsored lenses would be launched on or around Halloween and the prices would be high according to Financial Times report. Taking into account that Snapchat tends to have hundreds of millions of active users every month, the money could ideally go a long way.

Though there is no information on how different or same it would be to the prevailing lenses, Snapchat would be developing them in-house and according to the report it says that the first would probably be from Hollywood studios. This is the fourth revenue stream for Snapchat, besides Discover and the ads placed in daily stories as well as paid replays.

 However, this seems to be unique from the others and rather than passively observing, sponsored lenses are about engaging with brands which will exactly be in your face. Probably as Snapchat has put it across the Financial Times as `sponsored lenses enable Snapchatters to express themselves and connect with a brand in a really creative and dynamic way’.