Snap is taking a delicate dig at rival social media platform Instagram in its 1st international advertising campaign launched on Tuesday.
The campaign, referred to as “Real Friends,” aims to focus on how users can connect with their close friends on the company’s
app, Snapchat. As a part of the
launch, Snap staged a “hashtag takeover” on Facebook-owned Instagram,
filling the #realfriends and #friendshipquotes pages with quotes from notable
figures concerning friendly relationship.
Snap said it partnered with “Quotefluencer” accounts on
Instagram to post the ads. The ads are distinguished by Snap’s signature yellow
and ghost logo, nicknamed
Ghostface Chillah.
“Snapchat is for real friends, thus nowadays we’re launching a celebration of the buddies who share, laugh, love and
connect with each other using our platform,”
Chief marketing Officer
Kenny Mitchell, who joined
Snap in April, told CNBC.
“Featuring over 70 Snapchatters from twelve completely different countries, ‘Real friends’ shares the stories behind real friendships round the world.”
In a blog post, the
corporate said the
campaign underscores its mission of letting friends “express themselves” and
share how they feel
“in the moment.”
Snap additionally published a
series of short videos that
includes Snapchat users talking concerning their friendships, aboard footage from the app.
In addition to the social media campaign,
Snap said it’ll run ads through cinema,
broadcast, print and digital channels within the USA, India and Australia, as well as in Europe this fall.
The campaign comes after Snap last week published better-than-expected results for the second
quarter. Snap’s user base grew to 203 million daily active users, representing
the second quarter in a row
of growth for the corporate.
It’s not the primary time Snap and Instagram have engaged in a little bit of friendly
fire. Facebook attracted attention once it copied many popular options from
Snapchat, most notably its ephemeral Stories
feature and augmented reality
camera effects.
In response, Snap chief executive officer Evan Spiegel, quipped that he wished Facebook would copy Snap’s “data protection practices,” not simply its product, and criticized Facebook as being an area for “shallow friendships.”
Facebook wasn’t instantly available to reply to the campaign.