Snapchat lets advertisers create Promoted Stories

Snapchat is coming up with new forms of advertising to try to remain attractive to advertisers. With the new Promoted Stories, companies can tell a story with a series of photos. There is also AR Trial Ads, which works with augmented reality.

TechCrunch reports the arrival of the new forms of advertising, based on a statement from Snapchat CEO Peter Sellis. The new forms of advertisements should grab the user’s attention, and therefore be more interesting than conventional advertisements; and thus such forms of advertising must again be of interest to advertisers.

Promoted Stories allow advertisers to use a range of photos and videos to create a story. This is possible with a minimum of three photos or videos, and a maximum of ten. This makes the concept similar to the Stories that users can create themselves, although the advertising is labeled “ad”. With the Promoted Stories, Snapchat hopes that users will click through the content themselves; so they don’t necessarily have to see everything.

In addition, there is AR Trial Ads. With this form of advertising, products can be placed in an augmented reality environment, after which interaction is possible. TechCrunch gives the example of a car placed in a virtual environment, where the user can adjust various things, such as the color of the car.

With the new ads, Snapchat probably hopes to improve its financial position. Despite its popularity, Snapchat failed to post good financial results after the IPO, and user growth was also disappointing.