Let me start by saying Du is evolving quicker than any wireless carrier I have seen in the world. Five years ago it felt like a lost logo paddling amongst all of the regions imported brands. Today Du’s ability to adapt it’s core offering around Dubai’s smartphone users seems to move faster than most mobile and social agencies can cope with. If you’re looking for an invite to the party, the answer lies between Du’s new “Extra Social” plan and the app no marketers seem to be driving engagement with, Snapchat.

Du is promoting free Snapchat to YOUR customers.

Emerging from several social plans already launched in 2015, Du’s “Extra Social” plan offers customers a monthly spend ranging from 40dhs up to 300dhs, depending on their voice and data requirements. However even with the cheapest plan, each subscriber gets a separate 1Gb of dedicated data to use on Dubai’s most popular apps. Amongst them are the predictable Facebook, Twitter, BBM, LinkedIn and finally Snapchat. Du are backing the plan up with Snapchat’s logo featured right inside the creative, with some serious above the line inventory across Dubai’s roads and RTA.

How The Falafel did Snapchat end up free?

Well dummy, because people use it. Not young people, not ex-pats, people — period. Since I’ve moved to the region, I’ve noticed adoption from local men in lifts to screaming teens at concerts. Dubai’s population gets Snapchat, in a more progressive way than I’ve seen in the US or the UK. So, if you’re in mobile or social marketing, I’m going to explain how this will be the friendliest ghost your brand has ever met, or the one that frightens it to death.

THE BASICS

If you haven’t downloaded Snapchat yet, it’s the smartphone app Facebook tried to buy for $3bn. Users can send each other direct pictures or videos that disappear after they are viewed. Alternatively a user can send content to their “Story” where any follower can view it unlimited times for up to 24 hours after it was posted. Snapchat have even farmed out a series of fixed “discover” channels to MTV, CNN, Vice and others, where they produce beautiful custom content. Basically, it’s a stable platform. Pitch it out.

IF IN DOUBT, SMILE, NOD, REPEAT.

“Snapchat is the most important platform of 2015."

I personally don’t think this is ALL the way true as Snapchat doesn’t have a solid ad platform, targeting tools or clickable attribution (yet). However, as more people start noticing each other on Snapchat and marketers start to step their game up, you will see Snapchat have made some significant strides by the end of 2015. It’s basically going mainstream in the region and you should be pitching campaigns from now.

“Snapchatter’s Engage. Like REALLY engage.”

This IS all the way true. Snapchat is a platform with massive engagement amongst it’s users. In it’s very nature, users will create content for stories regardless of whether specific followers will engage or not. Ironically, this makes more users want to check Snapchat regularly, with their FULL attention. Users are known to consume Snapchat in a quiet place, with their headphones in and the volume turned up, so that they don’t miss a second of the content. I can literally hear the intro to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” before I hit play on my favourite users Snaps.

“Downloading is so last year.”

Totally. At last weeks Drake concert, I headed down into the crowd to shoot some footage and see how people were using their phones. The vast majority were holding the 10 second record key on Snapchat and uploading the footage to their stories. As with my previous article on Meerkat in Dubai, I’m all about “paradigms over platforms” — meaning apps and websites come and go, but behaviours adjusted by innovation only move in one direction. There is now a line between content you know deserves to be shared and kept and content you’d prefer just auto-delete itself once made or consumed. Snapchat is the latter.

“We can offer a tonne of Snapchat best practice!”

Let’s face it, there aren’t many Snapchat call to actions in Dubai. Meanwhile, in New York’s Times Square, Snapchat has become so mainstream that it has it’s own video and poster billboard (as seen at top of this Medium post).

That means every major US or UK based advertising publication has already written up brand case studies from empirical engagement data to more strategic use of Snapchat for earned media (see the Gary Vaynerchuk video below).

With all this said, we know there are enough nuances in the region that it is effectively never too late to catch up and start engaging using Snapchat. Consumers in the Gulf will eventually make each platform their own. However when Du makes such a sweeping gesture by giving an app massive recognition (undoubtably with data to justify it), then it’s surely worth getting some pitches ready for brands. Like, yesterday.