Ponder this! How can a photo, text or video message that lasts for several seconds before it expires, have much to do with delivering any message, let alone work as a marketing campaign?
And what about the stories (photo/video messages), which have a life-span of only 24 hours, before they completely vanish from the face of this earth? Would they generate any engagement with your audience?
The answer is Yes! It does invoke excitement, engagement and shares, you name it, regardless of its ephemeral nature, Snapchat has been taking the social media by storm with a whopping 158 million people using the App each day, with the average number of Snaps taken per day surpassing 2.5 billion mark!
The social messaging platform, which is very popular with millennials and ages between (12-24) had once turned down the offer of Facebook to sell the company for $3 billion – and currently it’s worth over $19 Billion, in valuation!
Having said that, it’s quite obvious that social media marketers need to jump into taking the huge opportunity provided through Snapchat, to engage with consumers, and here are 5 such creative examples from successful brands, that should inspire your Social Campaigns:
1. WWF #Last Selfie Snaps
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Denmark and Turkey took to Snapchat to deliver their social awareness campaign regarding endangered species.
It was clever on their part to tie the idea of #Last Selfie campaign with a platform that puts content which expires soon, sending a powerful message that if we don’t act on saving the population/environment of the endangered species, soon we may have to see them disappear, just like these snaps!
(Click here to view the video)
The snap chat video story, which lasts for about 52 seconds, depicts the images of endangered animals like the PolarB, Panda, Royal Bengal Tiger and Orangutan, with content that immediately conveys the message that the lives of these precious animals mirror the ‘transient’ nature of the snapchat, gone in second, if we don’t act now… so ‘Don’t let this be my #LastSelfie’!
2. Domino’s ‘Dough to Door’ Campaign
The Pizza outlet and more so its Australian branch, was one of the few fast food brands that took to SnapChat as early as 2013.
The Domino’s Australia was running Snapchat stories to align with campaigns they did on other social media platforms. An example below is a snapchat story of their campaign with the slogan ‘Anywhere, anytime, anyplace…”, where the picture shows a delivery person hanging from a helicopter to deliver pizza to its customer cruising on a boat:
Domino’s UK has also been snapchatting its stories since 2016. The story made into a short film titled ‘Dough to Door’ was a huge success, generating a spike in its orders.
The snapchat story portrays a journey of a delivery person, who meets multiple obstacles on his way to delivering a pizza to a customer, including invasion from aliens, however, he’s determined to deliver the ‘dough’ if it’s the last thing he has to do:
(Click here to view the video)
The snapchat video story received a big boost in engagement with online consumers as the viewers were shown a series of random letters throughout the movie that made for a unique discount code, which could be used to place online orders.
3. NASA’s Mars Story
As it turns out, NASA is also no stranger to SnapChat stories. It has been using the platform to cover breaking news regarding space exploration, crafting stories to explain complicated concepts to the common people and showcasing interviews.
(Click here to view the video)
In the SnapChat video story above, NASA captures the story of Astronaut Scott Kelly, who after his year-long space mission returns home. The story which is exceptionally crafted and narrated with images, texts and emojis, further engages the audiences by going into an ongoing research about the possibility of living life on Mars.
4. Taco Bell’s SnapChat Lens
If you’re a regular user of SnapChat, you must be familiar with SnapChat lenses – the unique distortions you can make on your selfie images, for instance fun features like the puppy ears, elongated toungue or the ‘puking’ rainbows etc.
Taco Bell partnered with SnapChat to make a sponsored lens for itself for a day. The team at SnapChat crafted a playful and funny looking ‘Taco Head’ lens for the brand to build their campaign.
The hilarious Taco-shaped lens for the users became an instant hit with lenses being generated and viewed 224 million times, in a single day:
The campaign also owes its success to the subtle branding from the team, as the snaps automatically played the famous ‘bong’ sound of the fast food chain. Though Taco Bell had to pay around $750,000 for the lens to SnapChat, it was well worth the money.
5. Mission Impossible’s missions for the fans!
The idea couldn’t have been better. As the ‘self-destructing’ nature of the message is intrinsic to SnapChat, as well as to the feature of the beginning of any Mission Impossible movie, the campaign turned out to be an exceptional marriage between the two.
To promote their new movie ‘The Mission Impossible –Rogue Nation’, fans of the movie were engaged to participate to a ‘mission month’ which featured challenges that were to be completed within 24 hours.
Every mission was introduced through a SnapChat video story, by none other than Tom Cruise with a ‘self- destructing’ snap at the end. The missions were varied in nature, such as; taking pictures of the movie posters and submitting them or, ‘taking a video of yourself running like Ethan Hawk’, etc.
These submissions from enthusiastic fans were showcased across social media platforms with the best entries being rewarded. Altogether 65 million impressions were made throughout the Social Media platforms.
Finally…
When using SnapChat stories for your campaigns, it’s essential to develop your own strategies and understand how the platform can be used to relate to your unique user personas, rather than copying or transferring campaigns from other social channels.
If you'd like further assistance or would like to discuss anything covered today, we'd love to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249 5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Our Website is element7digital.com.au
