With its recent announcement of reaching four million daily active users in Australia, Snapchat is a social force to be reckoned with. But the company’s recent rebrand to Snap Inc and the launch of a new hardware product called Spectacles signals that Snap has bigger plans.
The sunglasses, which hit the streets in the US via vending machines on 11 November, allow marketers, creators and users to change how they film and post content on the app, and they expand on previous offerings – including lenses, filters and stories. Spectacles demonstrate that Snap Inc is not just an app, but also a hardware company.
Undoubtedly wary of past failed wearables like Google Glass, Snap Inc is keeping the initial rollout of Spectacles small. Unlike Glass, the product’s branding, relatively affordable price point (US$129), well-defined demo, and clear-cut functionality minimise Snap Inc’s margin for error.
Snapchat Spectacles
What this means for users
More GoPro than Google Glass, Spectacles are meant for fun and are similar in look and feel to regular sunglasses. Users can capture their favourite outdoor moments while keeping their hands free for the good stuff.
Even better, Spectacles connect directly to Snapchat via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and transfer Memories directly into the app in the brand new Circular Video format. Circular Video closely matches the eyes’ natural field of vision with a 115-degree field of view and allows users to view parts of a video either vertically or horizontally. Check out an example of what this looks like here.
There’s no doubting that Spectacles are much more pleasing to the eye than Google Glass, but what may hinder Spectacles from taking off is their inability to take selfies – after all, selfies are at the heart of Snapchat’s filter functionality. In a culture where people like to ‘prove’ they are present at an event, a device that doesn’t allow for selfies seems somewhat last century.
What this means for marketers
Whether they reach critical mass or not – and it’s still too early to tell, although the pop up vending machines are creating undeniable hype in the US – Spectacles are the latest confirmation of the supremacy of video on social media. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to Snapchat, it’s all about the moving image and for marketers seeking to truly engage audiences on these platforms, video is a must-have.
Pre-Spectacles, many of Snapchat’s advertising opportunities restricted brands to vertical video, but that’s no longer the case. Now, Spectacles may open the door to multiple advertising opportunities and formats, including horizontal and rotating video ads, or custom sponsorship of the Spectacles themselves, with sunglass designer brands being a natural fit to help widen the range.
Within a week of the launch of Spectacles, advertisers in the US were serving up Spectacles-created videos to their followers. Among the early adopters were Mountain Dew (which took viewers on a skateboard ride, with bottle of Mountain Dew conveniently in the rider’s left hand), General Electric (which offered an insider’s look of its tech facility) and Esquire Network (with a 90-minute video of a motorbike ride to promote the network’s Wrench Against the Machine TV show).
This is just the beginning. We expect to see more brands experimenting with videos shot via Spectacles, not just as another format for their content but to align themselves with what is set to be the most sought-after gadget of the holiday season in the US.
From a product perspective, Spectacles hint at Snap Inc’s intentions for a broader exploration of Augmented Reality and 360-degree video content creation. What would make it super enticing for marketers would be the opportunity for location-based checking-in and geo-targeting, something which we can hope will come in the next iteration. We’ll stay watching this space.
By Miki Clarke, head of performance, MEC Australia