Snap Inc is continuing its hot streak of exciting new launches with its latest deal with Turner: in addition to putting Turner’s Bleacher Report on Snapchat Discover in the United States, Snapchat will also be teaming up with some of Turner’s television and video brands to create original content available exclusively on their platform.
These brands include some of Turner’s most recognizable, from Adult Swim to TBS and CNN. Snap has made similar deals in the past year, first with Viacom and more recently with NBC Universal.
Identity crisis
Snap has previously said that they want to be known, first and foremost, as a “camera company.” However, this doesn’t really square with the deals they’ve been making with media corporations, which are mainly concerned with the creation of original video content for Snapchat’s users. Not only is Snapchat teaming up with other companies to create video content, but they are also creating their own shows and looking to buy original programming.
No matter what it says on their website, Snap is well on its way to becoming a television company. By “television”, we don’t mean that Snapchat videos will make their way into homes via plasma screens; rather, Snap aims to make the mobile phone the new television by making it a platform for new, original content.
Not as easy as it seems
However, in order for Snap to attract the viewership numbers it needs to become a dominant player in the mobile media world, it first needs to get advertisers to invest in the platform. In order to get advertisers interested, there are a number of issues that Snap needs to address.
Firstly, Snapchat’s video ads average less than 3 seconds per view. Given that Snapchat’s ads can be skipped by the user, this new study raises questions as to the efficacy of such ads, and whether viewers can be converted in those 3 seconds. Additionally, Instagram’s introduction of Instagram Stories has also hurt Snap by being a near-perfect copy of Snapchat Stories, making some executives doubt whether Snapchat will be able to continue its current rate of audience growth.
Snap’s greatest asset, however, is its popularity amongst millennials. If Snapchat is able to generate enough original content to keep millennials interested, advertisers will flock to the platform in the hopes of reaching that demographic. Snapchat may end up becoming the television network of choice for that generation — a worrying prospect for the current television behemoths.