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Netflix's ads on Snapchat appeal to large, receptive audience


The live stories share user-generated content curated by Snapchat team members, and the NFL bolsters a significant following during the football stories. Netflix is promoting to a large audience on this story, which is also likely to be millennials and tech-savvy, a demographic likely to be interested and stream the series. 

"Snapchat has a number of factors in its favor," said Michael Becker, managing partner at mCordis, San Francisco. "It has attracted an important audience, the 18 to 34 year olds.

"According to comScore over 71 percent of the Snapchat user base falls into the 18 to 34 year old demo," he said. "Moreover, Snapchat has evolved beyond messaging and is now a platform for publishing exclusive content.

"Publishers, like the NFL, can use the Snapchat platform to deliver exclusive content to reach this audience and advertisers like Netflix can join in the effort by advertising alongside the content."

Monday night Snapchat
Following Monday Night Football, Snapchat users could catch a glimpse of the Bengals vs. Bronco game from perspectives of various fans attending the arenas. Netflix hoped to leverage the substantial amount of viewers the story is likely to have through video advertisements in between user content. 


Title character in Jessica Jones 

Users who clicked on the Monday Night Football story saw video teasers for the Netflix series Jessica Jones interspersed through the user-generated content. 

The first advertisement appeared after five user-generated posts from various areas at the Bengals vs. Broncos game. Content included fans traveling to the game, tailgating, viewing and even players in the locker room. 

Whether users were skipping through or watching in its entirety, the video ad appears featuring various images of personalities in the series with a voice-over from the title character saying ?you have no idea what he made me do,? along with another exclaiming ?come on Jessica, do not play the hero with me.? The final frame of the ad is a stationary image, encouraging consumers to stream the show on Netflix. 


Netflix's ad on Snapchat

The rest of the advertisements follow a similar format with moving images along with audio from the series. 

Snapchat leverage
Similarly, Hyatt Regency?s Hyatt Gold Passport brand teamed up with Comedy Central for new digitally driven content to augment the hotel chain's latest marketing campaign, which included custom, humorous advertisements on the network?s Snapchat Discover channel (see more). 

Toys R Us rolled out branded geofilters on Snapchat for the first time, pointing to the bigger role that in-store mobile engagement will play during the 2015 holiday shopping season (see more). 

"In many ways the model of content and advertising has not change with the advent of new channels like Snapchat, audiences are attracted to content available in the medium and advertisers pay to place their message in front of the audience," Mr. Becker said. "However, what has changed when advertising through channels like Snapchat, as opposed to TV, is the audience expectation for relevant and personalized experiences.  

"In intimate channels like Snapchat people are less tolerant of irrelevant ads, they want the marketer to speak to them," he said. "Snapchat?s and the content publisher?s understanding of their audience can help the advertiser understand the needs and preferences of the audience in order to help inform the advertising."

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer