Snapchat Uses Augmented For Large Brand Customers
Snapchat’s augmented reality allows OTHER companies to use AR in their marketing plans and by doing so has expanded their OWN marketing efforts and broadened their customer base.
Snapchat is a social media platform that allows users to take photos of themselves and send it around to their friends and family. Part of what has made them so popular is the “lenses” that are available on their app. Users can take a photo of themselves and place various filters on their photo so create images that are on themselves but are not really “there”. This is where their augmented reality comes into play- the photos are regular photos where people are able to create an entire “scene”. Snapchat has used this technology and marketed it to other companies to create filters whereby a company creates a lens and then individuals can take photos with that company lens as an overlay to their photo.
For example, if Starbucks wanted to use this augmented reality, they would create Snapchat filter, such that a person could take a picture of themselves, write a caption along the lines of “dreaming about a big hot cup of joe”, and then place a Starbucks overlay of a cup of coffee in their hands in the photo itself. They then send that out to friends and family and Starbucks has photos of their drinks circulating on Snapchat.
For starters, it’s a great move for Starbucks because it allows consumers to use their OWN social media platforms to promote Starbucks brand. But more than that, it also is a create technique that Snapchat is using. They are creating a venue whereby other companies can use their augmented reality services as a tool in their marketing arsenal. It’s another avenue that makes Snapchat so necessary to companies because it has become so expected at this point that all major companies will have such Snapchat filters. This definitely increases brand loyalty to Snapchat because it ensures that other companies, not just individuals, are using Snapchat for their social media needs. Of course, the more that people and companies are using Snapchat, the more they can sell ads for and the more sales revenue they bring in.
Snapchat has created a system where they are indispensable because they are using their technology to target other companies that know they need it in order to reach their own consumers.
