With Ads In Place, Snapchat Goes Hunting For Brands

Last month, Snapchat announced its plan to begin running ads, which will appear on the ephemeral messaging app’s Recent Updates page. With its ad infrastructure in place, Snapchat now wants to populate its streams with branded content, and it already has a few takers. According to a report in Digiday, Snapchat is planning partnerships with companies like CNN, Spotify, ESPN, the Daily Mail, and VICE.

Those companies would create content for a new section, which Digiday believes will be called Discover. Content on Discover will apparently go beyond images and video to include text and audio posts, which will not have any length restrictions. The format of the Discover section also features a novel look; other brands visible in Digiday’s mock-up include VEVO, BuzzFeed

The one part of Discover that will remain consistent with the current Snapchat app is the fleeting nature of its posts. Brand content posted to Snapchat will still disappear after a few seconds, thus maintaining the app’s signature feature.

It’s unclear when Discover will become available to the public, and Snapchat declined Digiday’s request for comment. The bottom line is that an influx of branded content to Snapchat could potentially turn the app into a much more legitimate media platform while simultaneously galvanizing its upstart creative community.