Snapchat is Comcast for your face, without the need for pipes. They want to own the distribution of video content on mobile (and eventually AR), whether it comes from your friend or from NatGeo. Right now, it's hard to get started on Snapchat for small vendors. It makes a lot more sense for large companies. This differentiates its strategy from Google and Facebook in a big way -- it's more demand generation (which FB also serves) than end-of-pipeline marketing. I am not sure how this limitation affects its growth potential. Thoughts? Will they open it up to smaller clients? How will the limitations of the format affect ads?
I'm sure they will open it up more broadly at some point. Right now they can ensure that the big brands create more compelling ads and have control over it. We'll definitely see more portrait video content moving forward.
Do you know if the ads they started running are forced viewing? Are they injected like interstitials before you can digest your friends' content?
If so, that's compelling for an advertiser but likely to kill the service IMO, as young people will easily defect.
