Last month, we wrote about Snap’s AR Lab. In partnership with WPP, it will start advertisers on the right foot for more immersive and visual marketing formats. This includes onboarding tools, education, and development resources – all meant to bring lenses to a wider base, including SMBs.
Now, just weeks later, Snap completes the one-two punch with the launch of a full-fledged AR creative studio. Known as Arcadia, it will work with brands on creative and technical levels to translate their marketing goals to AR campaigns and experiences. This educational component is largely missing.
Arcadia will take form as a “studio of record” for brands; or as smaller atomized engagements such as project-based work and educational partnerships (the “teach a man to fish” approach). Arcadia already has brand clients signed up including Verizon, WWE, Shake Shack and P&G Beauty.
Show & Tell
Notably, Arcadia bills itself as platform agnostic. It will operate beyond Snapchat’s own walled garden, including AR experiences that live across platforms, web, and apps. Doing so could help it cast the widest possible net and appeal to brands with a range of campaign objectives.
But a question that arises from Acadia’s launch is why? What has motivated Snap to launch its own AR creative studio, and what ends could it achieve? One answer involves following the money: In a broader sense, AR is the engine behind Snap’s revenue growth.
But why a creative studio? Snap’s ongoing AR development involves championing the technology and accelerating adoption among brands and agencies – the biggest reason for its recent App Lab launch as noted. And that’s sometimes an uphill battle of marketing and education.
By acting as a creative studio, it can show rather than tell. This could accelerate brand adoption and bring AR to a broader base of brands beyond early adopters. This “lead by example” approach could ease the AR learning curve and friction for Snap’s future advertisers including, again, SMBs.
Meanwhile, Arcadia is just the latest move in Snap’s ongoing AR development and actualization as a “camera company.” Not only has it popularized AR lenses by having them piggyback on media/selfie sharing, but it’s monetized that traction through sponsored lenses.
What About SMBs?
As for the SMB angle, Snap clearly has its eyes on local media and advertising. It’s Local Place Promote is one foothold into SMB marketing, which is mostly for targeted ad placement in Snap Map. But as Snap’s Alex Dao told us at Localogy Place (see above), lens based advertising is next.
The way this plays out according to Dao is that Snap Map is the first point of interaction where users will interact and find each other for local experiences. Once they arrive at their destinations — bars, restaurants, parks, etc. — Snap wants them to engage with businesses through Local Lenses.
And the latter is where a market education play could have an impact. The one-two punch of AR lab and Arcadia should help make that happen — starting with larger brands and agencies and eventually moving down market to the SMB segment. We’ll continue watching as it marches in that direction.
