Frankly speaking, I wasn’t familiar with the word ephemeral, until Snapchat entered my social world with its ephemeral, ‘transient’, ‘short-lived, or say ‘disappearing’ photo messages.
I’m guessing this rings true for most of us reading this post - Snapchat did add a new word to our vocabulary, and this one is not going to ‘disappear’ from our memories any time soon!
What started out in 2011, as a photo messaging App in the IOS platform with the name ‘Picaboo’, eventually got the name Snapchat – which is now the ‘staple’ social channel for over 150 million people who use it on a daily basis, enabling it to surpass Twitter in daily usage.
Within a year of its operation, Snapchat lovers were sending 20 million snaps per day. And just two months after that, the number reached 50 million – a ‘tell-tale’ sign that this ‘disappearing act’ was not just a fun way for millennials and generation ‘Z’ to share ‘selfies’ with their friends… but to take the Social Media by storm!
Soon more users and brands poured in to experience the features and tap the huge marketing opportunity provided by this unique and innovative social channel, whose popularity was soaring by the hour.
With its current worth estimated to be around $(20-24) Billion, Snapchat today has 301 million monthly active users, who are creating 3 billion+ snaps per day and watching over 10 billion videos in a day.
And now, armed with even more exciting features such as Snapchat Stories, Chat, Our Story, Geofilters and money transacting features like Snapcash – more brands are rushing to create advertisements, campaigns and brand narratives through Snapchat to market their products, engage audience; and to build their presence on social media.
Here are 7 creative and effective ways you can use to fuel your social strategies:
1. McDonald’s Australia – ‘Snaplication’ Campaign
On April 7 2017 McDonalds Australia went live with their new Snapchat filter named ‘snaplication’ which allowed people to apply for a job at McDonalds (or Macca’s in AUS), in a ‘snap’.
The ‘snaplicants’ can use the branded lens which will give them a virtual hat and a crew member name tag, after which they can record a 10 sec video about themselves before hitting ‘apply’. 
Once the ‘snaplication’ was submitted, the applicants were able to enter a more formal interview process. This was McDonalds Australia’s way of tapping into the 4 million followers of Snapchat in Australia, from which 60% were millennials aged (18-34) years.
The idea of applying for a job via Snapchat resonated positively with the younger demographic, as it was more enjoyable and easy for them to engage with the brand – all the while making the campaign a huge success in terms of brand awareness and recognition.
2. Terminator Genisys – Movie Promotion
Last year, for the promotion of the movie ‘Terminator Genisys’, a custom filter was created in Snapchat which encouraged movie enthusiasts to engage and interact with the popular ‘terminator’ theme.
The users were able to overlay the filters onto themselves to look like a ‘cyborg’, as depicted in its earlier series by Arnold Swarzenegger. To add to the buzz, Arnold also posted his snapchat filter generated photo on his Facebook account.
The popular actor’s Facebook post about the custom Snapchat filter received over 1 million views, 3000 shares and 55,000 likes. An effective way demonstrating how you can use celebrities and influencers to cross-promote onto other platforms and boost your campaign outreach.
3. Taco Bell’s Sponsored Lens
In May 2016, Taco Bell sponsored a Snapchat lens 'Cinco De Mayo', which was only available for a day, yet it proved to be the most successful campaign in the App’s history.
The filter which allowed users to turn their faces into tacos, broke all previous records and became the most viewed Snapchat lens by clocking in at 224 million views in a single day.
Through the ingenuity of marketers at Taco Bell, to add the fun element with their campaign by allowing users to have a taco for a head, was an irresistible opportunity for users to engage and have a laugh.
Taco Bell paid $750,000 for the filter for 24 hours, which proved to be worth the effort, as so many people really enjoyed playing with the filter – all in all, a successful branding effort with a massive boost to their sales.
The Super Bowl tradition of dumping sports drink from the cooler onto the coach’s head by the winning team, was cleverly crafted into a Snapchat sponsored lens by Gatorade last year.
The PepsiCo, who owns Gatorade, partnered with Snapchat to release an awesome Super Bowl Snapchat lens that allowed any users to give themselves a Gatorade bath – a fun way to keep the custom alive and to promote the popular energy drink.
The lens which cost $750,000 for the company was also used to feature their celebrity sports star Serena Williams in a fun ad, where she is shown being virtually dumped by a cooler of orange Gatorade.
By the end of the day, the sponsored filter which was used by the fans to shower themselves and their friends with Gatorade, reached an astonishing number of 100 million views.
5. Netflix –House Of Cards ‘face swap’
As an outdoor advertising campaign, Netflix released billboards in the streets of France and invited passersby to ‘face-swap’ with the characters of the popular American political drama ‘House of Cards’.
Face-swapping is a fun and addictive feature of Snapchat where two faces can be swapped to mix features and create two completely new funny and weird looking faces.
For the ‘face swap’ to work, people took a selfie (as above) through the ‘face swap’ function inside their Snap Chat App.
The campaign which was created by the Darewin Agency, got a huge response from France and around the world, with people even tweeting their face swapping results via the #NetflixSwap hashtag. All in all, an extremely innovative style of advertising, which compelled the audience to interact and engage with the character and the Netflix brand.
In 2015, Red Bull gave its users a peek at the lifestyle of Canadian Snowboarder and X Games champion, Mark McMorris, by letting him use their SnapChat account.
In the video Mark depicted his snapchat journey by first checking into a Surf Shop in San Diego and then headed to Big Bear mountains in the afternoon to surf with his friends.
The footage provided Mark’s fans and extreme sports enthusiasts with a unique perspective into the lifestyle of the champion, also subtly helping Red Bull to send a message to the audience - as a brand which is built to go with and support such extreme sports lifestyles.
In the video Mark is also seen sipping the popular drink and showcasing his skateboarding and snowboarding skills – yet another entertaining and successful influencer marketing campaign.
7. QANTAS – Gaynetto Snapchat Journey
It all started with a Tweet from an Aussie man Adam Moussa, living in New York, who tweeted about his craving for the ‘Gaynetto’ flavour of the Australian ice-cream brand Streets Ice Cream.
When people at Qantas discovered the tweet from Adam, along with the line, “@qantas please take me home immediately”, the airline couldn’t resist this opportunity to shine, as it prides itself as ‘The Spirit of Australia’. Yes, the airline decided to deliver the ice-cream to the man in New York, all the way from down under!
The airline used Snapchat as a tool to showcase the journey, right from check-in, to keeping it cool inflight, to ultimately handing it over to Adam, who was waiting to receive the treat, right in the middle of Times Square in New York City.
The story was also featured in other social channels, including twitter which posted an update and tracked the progress of the ice cream delivery, while still on air to New York.
The clever campaign was a huge success gathering 104,000 views on Snapchat story, with 770,000 people joining in on Facebook, and it received 1000 likes and 130 retweets across Twitter.
The story which was featured through many broadcast medium including Buzzfeed and Travel and Leisure, also clinched the ‘Shorty Awards’ for the ‘Best Snapchat Story’ - Most effective and creative use of video in a Snapchat Story by a brand, agency or organisation!
Over To You…
We hope these clever takeaways will inspire you to fuel your imagination in constructing ‘killer’ social strategies of your own.
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
