When Grace Kao joined Snapchat to steer advertising, she was tasked with sustaining the model’s “challenger spirit” whereas reassuring each its customers and advertisers it’s a place of “authenticity”.
However having joined the enterprise in January as vice-president for client and enterprise advertising, she was rapidly promoted to chief advertising officer in April, a title that hadn’t existed at Snapchat for 2 years.
The enterprise hasn’t had a CMO since Kenny Mitchell left in 2023, with the platform’s earlier advertising lead, Colleen DeCourcy, holding the title of chief inventive officer.
Nonetheless, whereas Kao and DeCourcy could have totally different job titles, she feels that is simply semantics.
“It’s at all times been the identical mission,” Kao tells Advertising Week, stating that her and DeCourcy’s imaginative and prescient is aligned regardless of their titles differing.
To have the ability to differentiate and place Snapchat on the market round what we stand for is certainly one of my primary objectives.
Grace Kao, Snapchat
That imaginative and prescient entails positioning Snapchat as a platform the place all its audiences, whether or not that be customers, creators or model advertisers, can harness authenticity and creativity.
Earlier than becoming a member of Snapchat earlier this yr, Kao’s model roles included time at Spotify, Instagram, Pandora and Yahoo. One factor that unites all these roles is the very fact they “problem the established order”, Kao asserts, including that she’s at all times cherished working for disruptive manufacturers.
“As soon as the challenger model turns into not the challenger, you need to nonetheless by no means lose that spirit, as a result of I believe most of creativity does come from that difficult spirit,” she says.
That is one thing that drives her ahead at Snapchat, the assumption that it presents one thing totally different from what’s on the market, that may positively influence customers.
Asserting what Snapchat is
Final yr, Snapchat launched a significant model marketing campaign ‘Much less Social Media, Extra Snapchat’, designed to distinguish itself from its aggressive set. Talking to Advertising Week on the time of launch, DeCourcy recognised the detrimental perceptions round social media typically and stated Snapchat was nicely set as much as be “the antidote” to that.
Kao describes final yr’s marketing campaign as an “necessary stake within the floor” for Snapchat however says now could be the time to maneuver that message on.
“This yr is nearly the part two of that. We talked about what we weren’t, however now we’re going to speak about what we’re,” she says.
Since becoming a member of Snapchat in the beginning of this yr, she has spent quite a lot of time fascinated with what the model stands for. An space of key differentiation for Snapchat is the snap itself, she notes, and the very fact the platform opens onto the snap digital camera, relatively than a newsfeed.
“Not like different apps, the place maybe once you open up, it’s about scrolling; we’re the one app [that] truly opens as much as a digital camera,” she says.
When it launched over a decade in the past, Snapchat was seen as being extremely uncommon within the social media house for this very cause. It’s now trying to emphasise these roots and dial up the snap itself and “what it stands for”, says Kao.
The brand new marketing campaign is entitled, ‘Say It in a Snap’, and it’s designed to emphasize the platform because the place to seize uncooked and fleeting moments.
“It’s the perception that connecting with folks needs to be quick and straightforward,” notes Kao.
Social media typically is commonly seen as one thing that causes younger folks specifically to chop themselves off from “the true world”, however Snapchat is designed in order that every thing is grounded in connections with household and associates, she says.
Taking over management of the model, this marketing campaign performs right into a broader total precedence for Kao in her first yr.
“To have the ability to differentiate and place Snapchat on the market round what we stand for is certainly one of my primary objectives,” she asserts.
Driving person ‘happiness’
Usually, executives at social media or expertise platforms could look to month-to-month common customers or promoting income because the foremost indicators of success. Nonetheless, for Kao, driving person “happiness” is a key metric of success for her.
She once more maintains that Snapchat’s level of distinction from a lot of its aggressive set is “connection” and “a spot that folks can authentically specific themselves”. This, she says, implies that customers of Snapchat are extra completely satisfied versus these on different social media platforms.
“So to me, a metric of success on the very best degree is simply completely satisfied customers,” she says.
Whereas completely satisfied customers may sound a fluffier metric than time spent on the platform by customers, or cash spent by advertisers, she notes that it’s deeply linked to extra business aims.
Once I open up Snapchat and I see the wonderful issues that our group are creating, as a marketer, I’m like, our stuff must be nearly as good as what persons are truly creating on platform.
Grace Kao, Snapchat
Blissful customers usually tend to wish to spend time on the platform, use it extra regularly and suggest it to others. They’re additionally extra more likely to have a mindset to interact with model content material on the platform.
“With completely satisfied customers it fairly truthfully then means completely satisfied advertisers,” Kao notes.
Certainly, the model commissioned analysis, working with IPG Mediahub and Amplified Intelligence, discovering that happiness drove stronger outcomes for advertisers on Snapchat versus on different platforms, with the enterprise posing the speculation that customers usually tend to be predisposed to obtain advertisers positively on the platform.
‘Shared language of creativity’
As CMO, Kao’s position covers advertising the model each to its customers and its advertiser companions.
Kao says her strategy to representing Snapchat as a model to advertisers versus customers doesn’t massively differ, with all teams wanting “totally different experiences to attach, whether or not with that’s with your loved ones, associates or the audiences that you simply wish to attain”.
Snapchat’s differentiation versus different platforms represents a chance for advertisers “trying to do one thing totally different”, she says. Particularly, it presents a chance to manufacturers to have the ability to have “extra intimate relationships and extra long-standing relationships”.
In addition to priding itself on the happiness of customers, Snapchat additionally sees itself as a house for creativity and genuine expression. Kao says that the platform sees “great” examples of creativity from creators and its ‘Snap Stars’ in addition to atypical customers.
The extent of creativity on the platform units the bar excessive for Snap’s advertising crew, she notes.
“Once I open up Snapchat and I see the wonderful issues that our group is creating, as a marketer, I’m like, our stuff must be nearly as good as what persons are truly creating on platform,” she says. “I believe it’s truly a beautiful problem and a beautiful bar to uphold for us because the advertising crew.”
The identical normal goes for the model’s promoting companions that work on the platform. They should tailor their work for Snapchat particularly to interact customers.
“What I at all times say is that you simply virtually have to indicate up like a Snapchatter, as a result of the group is so inventive,” Kao says. “So how do you could have that shared language of creativity and never simply be an interruption, however even have a chat and have a dialogue?”
There are many instruments on the Snapchat platform for advertisers to have the ability to harness that creativity, she says, whether or not that be by way of maps, the place the platform offers companions the possibility to make use of a promoted locations instrument, or by way of a extra conventional video format.
That is one other key objective of Kao’s, emphasising to each customers and advertisers the vary of options that Snapchat incorporates, all within the one app. The time period “tremendous app” is thrown about quite a bit, that means apps that supply plenty of totally different functionalities all on the one platform.
“Snap is likely one of the first tremendous apps,” Kao says. “We clearly have chat, we’ve maps, we’ve video, and we confide in the digital camera. So quite a lot of our journey is to drive understanding that Snapchat is all of this stuff.”
