Snap

Snapchat unveiled a menu of new ad opportunities during its NewFronts presentation, including First Story, an offering that enables advertisers to reserve the first Snap Ad that a user sees between their friends’ Story content.

Brands can reserve the first six-second non-skip commercial or first sponsored AR lens in all Snapchat markets. Warner Bros. has signed on to execute the first global takeover with this format for its upcoming film The Flash.

Snapchat has also rolled out ads in Spotlight for all advertisers globally. Advertisers are able to manage their placements within the Spotlight page via Snapchat Ads Manager. Ads will initially be served as automatic placements interspersed within Spotlight content. Spotlight content is moderated before reaching an audience to reduce the risk of ads appearing next to misinformation, hate speech or other potentially harmful content. Over 350 million Snapchat users watch Spotlight content every month, with total time viewing Spotlight content growing 170% year-over-year in Q1.

New content partnerships announced by Snapchat include sports sponsorship packages that will be activated across Snapchat during major sports events around the world, such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup, as well as partnerships with the NFL, NBA, and WNBA.

Last month, Snapchat made its AI-powered chatbot, My AI, available to all users. On Tuesday, Snap detailed how it is now experimenting with new ways My AI can be used for advertisers, such as sponsored links for dining options, airline or hotel offerings based on My AI conversations.
Before determining if the conversation is eligible for a sponsored link, Snapchat runs safety checks to detect abuse, policy violations and content sensitivity on messages, as well as the Snapchatter’s age. Initial testing has shown strong engagement, though more detailed results will be released as the experiment continues.

Although not yet available in Canada, Snap Star Collab Studio has been launched in the U.S. The turn-key end-to-end service helps brands source, partner and drive results with Snap creators. Collab Studio offers managed service production supported by four initial preferred production partners.

Samsung Ads

During its showcase, Samsung announced that it is introducing the TV and You Community, a panel measurement offering for advertisers, marketers and publishers to get real-time data about a consumer’s television consumption. Audio content recognition technology will measure the TV content consumption of individual viewers within Samsung households on both linear television channels and streaming services. Samsung says it is on target for 5,000 panel participants who have opted in by the end of Q1, with four undisclosed pilot partners from four different sectors.

Also on the measurement front, Streaming ACR Ad Viewership will measure viewership of ads on the company’s Samsung TV Plus FAST service, as well as other select streaming services, which the company claims will offer a level of granularity unavailable from other current measurement options.

Rounding out the company’s performance-related announcements was Smart Outcomes, a single suite of performance-focused planning and optimization tools that currently exist across its products, such as pre-campaign insights tool Audience Advisor and AI optimization tool Smart Audiences.

In terms of ad formats, Samsung has also partnered with interactive video platform Kerv that will allow it to automatically create interactive and shoppable ads, identifying objects within videos using AI.

Finally, Samsung has also announced its plans to extend its ad reach into digital out-of-home, with the initial launched in the company’s own inventory globally, as well as select supply partners in retail.