Snapchat CEO Spiegel: Untargeted
Advertising Is Coming Soon
Snapchat, the popular mobile app
for disappearing messages, is close to launching its first disappearing ads as
the company sets out to prove its $10 billion valuation.
Evan Spiegel, the startup’s
24-year-old co-founder and chief executive, said Wednesday at a conference that
the company will “soon” debut its first ads. The messages will appear within
the Snapchat Stories feature, in between the photos and videos shared by users,
and will not be targeted to individual users based on their tastes, he said.
“We’re cutting through a lot of
the new technology stuff around ads to sort of the core of it, which I think
has always been telling a story that leaves people with a new feeling,” Spiegel
said. “They’re not fancy. You just look at it if you want to look at it, and
you don’t if you don’t.”
The comments came during a
wide-ranging interview Wednesday at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in
San Francisco. Katie Couric, the veteran television broadcaster who is now a
video anchor for Yahoo, interviewed Spiegel on stage along with former New York
Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
The ads will be the first source
of revenue for three-year-old Snapchat, a company recently valued at $10
billion by investors. The stratospheric valuation has put pressure on Spiegel
to turn his free mobile app used by millions of teenagers into a moneymaking
business. The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo has committed to invest
in Snapchat, and venture firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
have also invested.
Snapchat has held talks with
marketers and at least a dozen media companies – including newspapers,
magazines and television networks – about a new service for disappearing
content and ads called Snapchat Discovery which it plans to debut this year,
people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal in August.
In the interview on Wednesday,
Spiegel did not specify when ads would appear in Snapchat Stories or discuss
his company’s plans for Snapchat Discovery.
Several brands, including Taco
Bell and food delivery service Grubhub, already use Snapchat to offer
promotions and hold contests with their most loyal users.
