Month: January 2020

Sources close to Snapchat said at least for the first 10-week-long season of Bitmoji TV, no advertisements or publishers will be involved in the production of this personalized entertainment content. Snapchat wants to gather community feedback first before possibly opening up Bitmoji TV to advertisers or publishers, according to these sources.

Each Bitmoji TV season will include 10 episodes that will air on Saturday mornings, and Snapchat has already enlisted some well-known names to participate, including Randy Jackson, Andy Richter, Jon Lovitz and Riki Lindhome.

Users can also subscribe to Bitmoji TV to receive alerts about the release of new episodes but all of them will be shown exclusively on Snapchat Discover, which features entertainment content from more than 450 premium channels. Bitmoji TV will become one of 95 original shows featured on Discover.

Snapchatters increased the total amount of time they spent each day on Discover 40% in 2019’s third quarter, as compared with the period a year before. And the total daily time spent by Snapchat users watching Shows on Discover tripled in 2019’s second quarter, as compared with the same stretch in 2018.

The new Bitmoji TV show builds off of the success of Bitmoji Stories, which first debuted on Snapchat in November 2018. With comic-strip-like illustrations of users’ personal Bitmoji interacting with those of their friends, The Stories are released three times a week on Discover. To date, more than 130 million Snapchatters have watched Bitmoji Stories.

In 2016 Snapchat acquired Bitstrips, the company behind the cartoon-like Bitmoji avatars, for $62.5 million. Snapchat has since expanded the use of Bitmoji in a variety of ways, from Stories and Games to Snapchat augmented-reality Lenses and even Venmo payment notes. Bitmoji are one of Snapchat’s most popular features, with 70% of its 210 million daily active users having made Bitmoji in their own likeness.

Snapchat’s decision to launch Bitmoji TV as a form of personal, mobile entertainment shows how the use of avatars has evolved from the desktop game context (such as for Second Life and The Sims) to becoming a form of personal communications as well as a mainstream type of entertainment.

Other avatar-based app companies have already introduced advertising opportunities. Since Genies’ launch in 2018 its avatars have been downloaded about 629,000 times. The company lets advertisers run campaigns on its platform where users create animated “actions” that feature their avatar or Genie. And the company has enlisted avatars from celebrities and influencers to drum up brand awareness.

Direct-to-consumer brands and advertisers that are seeking more options for placement and content will be keeping an eye on something like Bitmoji TV or more generally avatar-based marketing, said Katya Constantine, CEO of Digishopgirl Media. Her ad-buying agency works with such brands as Noom and Away.

Rachel Bulla, vp of client partnerships for Buckland Co., said she and her clients would definitely be interested to learn about any advertising opportunities that might open up with Bitmoji TV, but she would want to see the audience numbers. While her clients, such as apparel company Ivory Ella, have not done avatar-specific marketing thus far, they have been open to creating Giphys. “If you could put your Bitmoji in an Ivory Ella shirt and have your Bitmoji wear it in the Bitmoji TV series, I would consider that a great awareness opportunity,” she said.

Photo: Snapchat

“We are still hitting our targets on Facebook,” Tirocchi said. “They have one of the strongest algorithms.”

When companies move their marketing spending “from one source to another — it’s more about trying to understand if you can make [your strategy] work on Facebook or not,” he added. “If you’re not successful on Facebook, you’re probably not going to be successful on other platforms.”

In recent years, some direct-to-consumer companies have tried to rely less on Facebook and Instagram marketing. Executives at DTC companies like Brooklinen and Curology previously told Digiday they were on the hunt for digital alternatives. And leaders at other types of companies have been concerned about relying too much on digital advertising. But Shapermint isn’t planning to join other DTC companies in the flight from Facebook and instead is spending millions on a month on Facebook and Instagram advertising.

While DTC companies often cite Facebook advertising as a major part of their initial success story, Shapermint’s outsize marketing allocation to Facebook and Instagram isn’t as common as it once was. With customer acquisition costs on Facebook-owned platforms on the rise, several DTC companies have said they are moving away from them in favor of up-and-coming and cheaper platforms like TikTok’s. But analysts said Shapermint’s current allocation makes sense as Facebook’s platforms remain top customer-acquisition channels.

“DTC brands are always looking for other channels to acquire customers that [have] a lower cost per acquisition,” wrote Zach Stuck, CEO of digital agency Homestead Co. via email. “That being said, Facebook and Instagram ads are still the number one channel for acquiring customers for the 20+ brands we work with,” noted Stuck, whose agency primarily works with DTC companies.

To have its Facebook and Instagram ads stand out, Shapermint constantly updates its creative work and branding campaign assets, which are produced by its in-house team. Media planning and buying tasks are also managed in-house. Additionally, Shapermint has an acquisition team working on campaigns for new customers, an activation team that coordinates with the product team to oversee Shapermint.com, and a retention team that manages campaigns that target already-acquired customers. The company aims to have its teams stay out of silos and instead work together on campaigns, Tirocchi said.

Shapermint’s creative work is designed to change the way millennials and Generation Z women think about shapewear, so they might consider it less as a restrictive piece that makes someone appear slimmer and more as a confidence booster, said Stephanie Biscomb, Shapermint’s head of brand. A recent campaign, “Feel Like the Masterpiece You Are,” for Black Friday and Cyber Monday generated 35 million views via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube and reached 25 million unique women, according to the company.

Analysts said that if its Facebook strategy is working, then Shapermint should continue along that path, even if other DTC companies are veering in another direction.

“Most successful companies, let alone DTC brands, have been built on marketing channels and strategies that didn’t last forever,” said Chris Toy, CEO of MarketerHire. “No marketer would expect it to. If something is working, you should max it while the going is good, while also making sure your strategy covers the inevitable drop.”

While Shapermint’s leadership said it is still happy to work with Facebook, it is starting to test television advertising and consider adding podcasts to its marketing mix. The company declined to share what it has spent on television ads so far but did mention it ran some tests in December.