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At its NewFront presentation today, Snapchat unveiled a new venture called Creator Marketplace, which will enable marketers to connect with Lens creators (and eventually Snap Stars, or Snapchatters who tout verified accounts) to collaborate on ads.
The Marketplace launches later this month, and will initially enable businesses to partner with a select group of AR creators through year’s end. Advertisers will be able to leverage the expertise of creators within Snap’s Lens Network, the company said, to build AR ads without having to pay for extensive creative resources. (The Lens Network refers to AR creators working within Snap’s free Lens Studio desktop platform).
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Advertisers will be able to search the Marketplace by location, language, specialty, lens category, or budget (pictured above). It appears as though Lens creators — including Andre Elijah, Brielle Garcia, Cyrene Quiamco, and Jye Trudinger — will show up in search results via profile cards containing a brief ‘about me’ section, pertinent websites, languages spoken, and Lens production fees. Snap won’t take a cut of any of these transactions, it says.
Then, early next year, the Creator Marketplace will open up to all creators — beyond those who work in AR — enabling brands to link up with creators of every stripe for ad campaigns and brand activations, including traditional video assets.
A Snap spokesperson tells Tubefilter that Creator Marketplace marks its first step in building a scaled and productized solution to pair businesses with creators — thought it has previously provided such services on a one-off basis.
At the same time that it announced the Creator Marketplace, Snapchat touted the growth of another creator-focused feature, Spotlight — a nascent and apparently enormously lucrative hub for UGC content. Launched last November, Spotlight surfaces and monetizes the community’s most entertaining Snaps, and as of March boasted 125 million visitors.
Snap also shared during its NewFront that, unlike competing platforms like TikTok, Spotlight doesn’t feature public comments and profiles are private by default in order to steer clear of the toxicity and fake news that run rampant on social media. Additionally, all content is moderated through both automation and human review before being widely distributed, Snapchat said.
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