The good…
Snapchat is the “it” platform right now. Many have even said that 2016 is the year of Snapchat due to its ever-increasing popularity. The most popular Snapchat feature is “Lenses”, making Snaps even more fun by adding real-time special effects. Not only does the app offer daily rotating lenses, but they also offer sponsored lenses. The promoted lenses allow brand exposure unlike any other. A sponsored lens lasting 24 hours is estimated to be viewed by users 220 million times.
This feature allows everyone to interact with the brand in a totally custom and personalized way. The good news is that Snapchat only puts out one or two sponsored filters a day, eliminating competition like other traditional advertising methods. Each day that a lens is sponsored by a company, that brand gains millions of brand evangelists who chose to use and share the sponsored feature.
When your company sponsors a lens, you also get a place on the “Discover” page, a variety of channels from top publishers. When the lens is used, there will be an option to post the image or video to the discover page. If you don’t scroll through the available filters on your Snapchat, you will still be able to view sponsored lenses through the “Discover” page.
The bad…
Giving Snapchat users unrestricted access to brand’s assets opens the company up to many risks. When someone posts a negative comment or image on Facebook or Twitter, brands are able to react to the situation instantly and can delete any inappropriate content. When it comes to Snapchat, there is no way for the brand to know what is being said on every Snap that is sent. In an analysis of more than 4,000 Snapchat videos using sponsored lenses, more than 6% were flagged for inappropriate content. That 6% adds up to thousands of negative comments and there is no way for a brand to track and react to this content.
As great as this feature is for businesses, it does not work for all brands. The essence of a Snapchat Sponsored Lens is fun. The more interactive a lens is, the longer a user will view it before Snapping it to friends. This need for an engaging and exciting filter makes it hard for some brands to break into the new ad strategy.
Purchasing a sponsored lens for your brand is not for the faint of heart. They can range anywhere from $100,000 to $700,000 per day. For smaller brands, purchasing a branded filter would most likely be out of the question on budget alone.
While the level of exposure and recognition that come along with using sponsored lenses is huge and works wonders when it comes to reach, a brand should view the pros and cons from every angle. Before investing in the lens, brands need to know if they can survive the risks they’re opening themselves up to. All it takes is one bad post with the brand’s name in it to ruin a campaign or a company’s image. But, on the other side, brands must be prepared to handle the influx of traffic that the sponsored lens may bring in
