While Snapchat has been around for nearly two years, until recently it was primarily the dominion of teens and college kids, with whom the 10-second auto-destruct feature of all shared images appealed. However, companies have caught wind of Snapchat’s 8 million users and nearly 350 million daily uploads, with several fashion and entertainment brands taking the platform for a spin. Fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff made fashion week headlines with a Snapchat collection preview, and Karmaloop recently caught the attention of Ad Week for appealing to the platform’s “young, risqué-minded demo.”
In early November, Juicy Couture claimed another Snapchat first, sharing it’s Spring 2014 campaign through the use of the latest app update, Snapchat Stories. Unlike the original photo and video sharing options, Snapchat Stories allows users to now send a stream of snaps to friends, and these narratives last for up to 24 hours.
The brand teased the event for days before sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the Spring 2014 photoshoot, even creating a stop/start style packing list as they “Went West” for the location. Once announced, and with the help of a star-studded cast, including Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Emily DiDonato, the Juicy Couture Spapchat account instantly gained 1,000 friends who viewed the story , including set design, model hair/makeup and first looks, leaving behind their reactions and brand enthusiasm.
When you take a snap video that you would like to share, you simply add it to your compilation by tapping “My Story.” Over a 24 hour period, you can add additional snaps, knitting together the story that you wish to share. Once you’re happy with the story you can share it with any fans who have friended the brand on Snapchat. The beauty of Snapchat stories is that your brand and the content you share is free to evolve overtime, alongside the constantly updating and changing profiles of your fans.
Apart from its novelty, the exclusivity of a Snapchat story is what gives it its true appeal from a content-generation perspective. When creating your own brand narrative via Snapchat, your goal should be to share some element of the brand story that is unique to Snapchat. Behind-the-scenes access will likely outperform product-driven posts, as well any opportunity to engage existing Snapchat users in the campaign itself. The platform is fertile ground for brand creativity and the “now you see it, now you don’t” appeal makes it possible to try out a multitude of content themes without a trace (except for hopefully thousands of new adoring fans!).
What do you think about Snapchat? Is it a fit for the brands you work with?
Photo Credit: rustman
