Spectacles by Snap(chat): Another millennial digest you’ve been waiting to hear or hoping didn’t happen at all
In the early fall of 2017, Biz Carson and Business Insider released a “secret commercial” by Snap, Inc. that told the world the company would be releasing their first wearable product, Spectacles.
The term wearables has a somewhat negative perception that revolves around them due to the underwhelming performance or capabilities of what we’ve seen thus far. All odds were against them thanks to Google Glass. But, yet Snap still managed to create a killer product that proved assumptions wrong.
If you’re unfamiliar, Spectacles are rather funny looking sunglasses with a camera in the side that allow you to record a ten second video that uploads to the app on your phone. It’s different than the average snap, because it allows you to give your friends a 360 degree view of what’s in front of you and offers users a unique way to showcase their lives in their story. As it turns out, it’s the exact sequel Snap, Inc. needed to follow up their app.
While this may not sound groundbreaking at first, Specs have created an easy and fun experience for not only the users posting, but also the one’s viewing. Spiegel noted that he didn’t want to be too aggressive in releasing the product. In order for the company could gauge if it was a good fit into people’s everyday lives and snapping, they masked their hesitation through a preferential campaign done without any human-human interaction. But how? Snapbots.
Snapbots are a personified Spectacles vending machine that can land anywhere and anytime. The only way to find out is through Spectacles.com. Don’t worry, there’s a countdown so you won’t miss it. Through this, Snap showed us how to market products to millennials the right way for the future.
All this being said, I knew I needed to get my hands on a pair.
“Nothing creates cool like scarcity” — Neil Blumenthal
After following @Spectacles for some time, the FOMO (fear of missing out) was absolutely eating me alive. But, yet unlike Warby Parker, there wasn’t a landing page with a waiting list. Snap, Inc. created an artificial constraint by releasing extremely limited quantities at random places on the map, with no directions whatsoever. Unless you wanted to wait and see what was to come next on spectacles.com/map, the only other alternative is the storefront in New York City with lines of up to 7+ hours.
Once people started getting helicopters into the Grand Canyon for a pair, I considered trading a limb for these glasses. Luckily, I didn’t have to and managed to get my hands on a pair (thank you Chris Monachino).
My friends that aren’t involved with tech really didn’t appreciate how cool the product was. Then, I had my hands on a pair. I decided to debut them by posting short series of explainers before I posted a snap with the actual product.
After that was all said and done, I took my first snap with the Specs like a real millennial… from my dorm room.
Almost no one knew about Spectacles, and I received a ton of confused messages. I was even asked if I made them myself to use on Snapchat, which is totally flattering and hilarious. I was shocked there wasn’t more recognition, but soon came to realize that I was marketing this product. And, by everyone who bought them being eager to share their cool new toy with their friends once they had it, they’re marketing reps too.
So what can other companies take from this? What did “us, millennials” really appreciate out of the campaign that still continues to thrive?
It’s not the usual “in your face” marketing that we receive from most all consumer tech. Though it may seem that all Snap, Inc. did was post a bunch of eyeballs around cities, this cryptic feel is what causes my fast moving generation to really slow down and take a look. The brilliance of the design helped us recognize the same yellow color that we tap on our iPhones 80+ times until we fall asleep and the eyeball made us stop to look for more than half a second to ponder what it really meant. Congratulations, you’ve managed to keep us hooked Snap.
This being said, I like to think of Snap(chat) as the parent that spoils their child every week with new gadgets and toys. Subtlety, the company releases update after update to keep us busy while they work on their next moves. Just in the past few weeks, they gave us groups, shazam integration, stickers, and augmented reality/filter iterations that allow us to customize our experience even more. Every kid is now screaming to try what’s next.
We saw there’s a need to really have a fear of missing out; there was an experience behind engaging with a Snapbot and a mystery behind what it was really like to use Spectacles that everyone was dying to know. Once one person has them, another person had to get them too! People I never talk to were asking me if I wanted to hang out or coordinating trips with their families to the New York pop-up shop to get their hands on a pair.
From there, more and more people know from the evident power of social that we talk about every day. Spectacles are two buzzwords that we never get tired of; simple and innovative. It’s amazing to be able to capture an opportunity and share at the speed of hitting a button; a true “redefinition of the camera”.
Before I digress, what does this mean for the years to come and even Specs 2.0? There’s an opportunity for the company to build on a platform that seems to be fitting the future desires of millennial consumers; more new features and augmented reality, AR. The future of Spectacles is almost entirely dependent of changes being made to the app, so I’d like to assess where I believe Snapchat is going and how Specs 2.0 might come into play.
Taking Photos with the Specs? While this is a lot of speculation, I do genuinely believe that some of these things could potentially churn out of the Snap Team. To start simple, I definitely think there will be a functionality to take photos with the Spectacles in future versions. This is something that I and many other users were longing for, because several 360 cameras that have launched have had this capability and frankly, it’s awesome.
A Google Glass copy? See, Google’s product wasn’t all bad. In fact, it was actually incredible. There was amassed hype rallied around the ornate user interface and functionality (which ultimately failed, but that’s besides the point). Snap could definitely steal this to give users the opportunity to edit their snaps with dynamic and interactive filters, get notifications from the app, and more as their product gets more intuitive. Trust me, Picasso and Jobs would be proud of them.
Go live with Specs? To dive even deeper into my farfetched thoughts, I definitely think that there will be an option where you can “go live on Snapchat with Spectacles”. This isn’t an option just yet, but I think Snap is waiting and learning from the failures of Facebook Live’s marketing campaign. If you’ve ever done a video call to a friend in Snapchat, I think it will look similar with filter and AR integration available at the speed of reality. Perhaps the livestream from Spectacles could be also include real-time filters and so forth? — For example, if you were to travel from Union Square to SoHo the options would change. I’ll be expanding on this idea in another post so stay tuned.
Face Recognition? Before you completely write me off, I want to hit you with what I really think could change the game. Wearing these glasses has tended to attract a lot of people I’ve never met before, it would be really amazing if, based on face recognition, the Spectacles would save their profiles for me to add them later on. This would be a super innovative way to keep people connected, but it could also be a total invasion of privacy.
To say the least, it’ll be interesting to see what comes next and I can’t wait to see if any of this is actually implemented in the next version of Spectacles. Regardless, I’m impressed today and so are the rest of the millennials (for now).
So, Snap, Inc., if you’re reading this… Kudos to you.
I hope this provided value to you and perhaps gave you some more insight into how “us, millennials” felt about the Spectacles release! Throw me a ❤️️, would ya?
Find me at jamesxbase.com or (almost) anywhere @jamesxbase! I’d love to hear what you think will happen before the year 2040.
