Recently, Snapchat announced a new advertising opportunity: Creator Marketplace. With Snapchat explaining, “The Creator Marketplace integrates Creators directly into our advertising ecosystem for businesses to connect with Lens Creators, Lens Developers, Lens Partners, and eventually Snap Stars to help elevate their marketing presence on Snapchat.” The Creator Marketplace offers advertisers the ability to leverage Snapchat’s very popular augmented reality (AR) features and, ultimately, build partnerships and branding opportunities with “prominent Snapchat creators known as Snap Stars.”

What Is The Snapchat Creator Marketplace?

The Snapchat Creator Marketplace is a chance for brands, creators and Snapchat to all benefit from the growth of Snapchat. “For brands, it’s an opportunity to leverage the expertise of our network of AR Creators; for Creators, it gives them a way to further build a sustainable audience and business on the platform; and for Snap, it means more advertising partners can produce and execute compelling creative on Snapchat without the need for extensive resources,” said Peter Naylor, VP of sales in the Americas at Snapchat.

Why Is Snapchat Launching Its Creator Marketplace?

Snapchat made supporting Lens creators a priority over the last year, even creating a fund directed toward AR Lens creation, and the Creator Marketplace is a natural extension of the popularity Snapchat has found with its Lens creators. Lenses are considered by Snapchat to be “playful AR experiences that transform the world around [users].” When effectively deployed by brands, Lenses offer what Snapchat calls play time, defined as “time Snapchatters spend playing with the interactive ad.” 

Snapchat Lenses are gaining in popularity. Sarah Perez for TechCrunch reported recently:

• 180 million people interact with a Snapchat Lens every day. 
• Snapchat averages 280 million daily users (90% are 13-15 year olds), with more than 5 billion Snaps posted per day.

In addition, “85% of the Gen Z population watched a Snap Original,” according to Snapchat. So, the rollout of new original content, some of it starring the platform’s biggest stars, illustrates Snapchat’s commitment to keeping creative a top priority and keeping its young subscribers engaged and on the platform. 

Is The Snapchat Creator Marketplace Designed To Compete With TikTok?

The introduction of Snapchat Creator Marketplace offers another competitive advantage for Snapchat against rival TikTok. Although focused on AR Lens Creators this year, next year Snapchat Creator Marketplace will “expand to include the community of professional creators and storytellers who understand the current trends and interests of the Snap user base and can help businesses with their ad campaigns.” This Snapchat Creator Marketplace expansion should support Snapchat Spotlight, which launched last year to compete with the TikTok “For You” page.

How Does The Snapchat Creator Marketplace Benefit Digital Advertisers?

Snapchat Creator Marketplace provides another pathway to advertising on Snapchat, with the expertise of Snapchat Creators providing sophisticated AR activations and features that many digital advertisers aren’t able to execute on their own. With Snapchat Creator Marketplace, advertisers could gain a “new opportunity to leverage the creativity and expertise of Snap Creators [and] drive ROI for Snapchat marketing activity.” 

The Snapchat Creator Marketplace will initially launch in late May 2021 “for all businesses to partner with a select group of AR Creators through 2021,” expanding to an “open marketplace that includes all Snap Creators” in 2022.

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