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why invest in snap
AR for Deep Immersion
The Opportunity
The global media market is massive. It is expected to grow from 1.7 trillion to 2.6 trillion in 2025. A lot of this growth is driven by Covid-19’s impact in rapidly digitizing many industries. While before, a business could rely on flyers, paper newspapers or traditional means of advertising, Covid-19 has fast forwarded the advertising approach of most of those businesses online.
Even capturing a small portion of this market could have huge implications for companies that can outgrow the competition.
What it takes to win
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The quality of an interaction matters. When people see hours of ads on TV, they may be less persuaded than if their mom told them about a great restaurant to try out in 10 seconds. Snap takes advantage of this ‘trust economy’ by tapping into word of mouth.
For example, in a recent successful Lens campaign, people shared a short video of a virtual Gatorade pouring on someone’s head which Snapchatters willingly shared with their family and friends. Gatorade experienced such amazing ROI in brand awareness and spend because people shared it with their family and friends, which increased positive brand association.
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The depth of an interaction matters. First came the newspaper, then the radio, and then TV. In each iteration the level of attention actually matters as the level of immersion increases. We believe that there is a difference between seeing a text based ad in the sidebar vs having full page immersive, unskippable video ads in Snapchat.
Snapchat also has immersive branded AR games, immersive Lenses to share with friends, and a generally deeper and more memorable interaction with advertisers within the community. This is what we mean by the ‘depth’ of an interaction. One deep interaction (fully immersive, video explanation, or a fun branded video game), may have much deeper impact than thousands of banner ads we see across the internet.
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The innovation of the interaction matters.
The social media landscape has not finished transforming. The next big leap in social media technology is in Augmented Reality, to leverage digital technology to better express ourselves. The company that is leading in this space may greatly benefit by capturing a field that may disrupt our current landscape.
The Moat
Snap has a relentless focus on creators. Even if another company comes out with AR glasses, Snap would already have secured much of the crucial content that needs to be out there first before there is a mass adoption of AR.
Also, it is not easy capturing 75% of millennials and having on average 30 app opens a day. By capitalizing on the aspects of social media and advertising that has been underutilized: the trust economy (word of mouth), the attention economy (immersion) and the integration economy (new tech in the form of AR), Snap is set to differentiate itself from existing social media companies and emerge as an innovate tech powerhouse that is well positioned to take advantage of a rapidly growing market.
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