History was made this week here at Transformation, folks. Buckle up, because we’ve begun work on our very first Snapchat marketing project! We blog about Snapchat being the newest trend in social media marketing all the time, but there are certain challenges that come along with it. Snapchat is a social platform that operates in a very real-time fashion, even more so than Twitter, which makes it difficult for a third party marketing agency (that’s us) to utilize it effectively. Our team cannot be in our clients’ stores or work areas all the time, so we took a little different approach.
As you may or may not know, we work with Papa John’s in the Lincoln and Omaha area. Last year we launched the first Papa John’s Fantasy Football platform, and it’s back this fall for a second year. We’re really pushing PJ Fantasy Football these next few weeks before the registration deadline hits in early September, and after much discussion, we’ve decided to implement a Snapchat geofilter.
What’s a geofilter, you ask? If you’re unfamiliar with Snapchat, know that there are filters available based on your physical location that can be added to snaps. Some of these are “community filters,” which provide a graphic on top of your photo that explains where you are (the city of Lincoln has several, some neighborhoods have their own community filter, etc.). There are also “sponsored filters,” which are paid for by advertisers and promote a business, event, or cause. For Papa John’s Fantasy Football, we created a sponsored geofilter and are making it available in certain areas around UNL campus and downtown Lincoln.
Snapchat geofilters work in a sort of dual-benefit way. Users take a snapchat and then swipe their screen a few times to add the Papa John’s geofilter. From here, two things happen. One, the user is exposed to the message, and two, the user him/herself becomes a media channel. The user sends the snapchat to 5, 10, or even hundreds of their friends, all of whom get exposed to the message as well. What’s more is the advertisement becomes interactive and personal (because the PJ’s Fantasy Football Logo is next to the user’s face), making it more meaningful to those who see it.
Our goal with the Papa John’s Fantasy Football geofilter is primarily to get sign-ups for fantasy football, but we’re expecting to also increase brand awareness/recall and therefore see more pizza sales at the Papa John’s downtown location. This project is the guinea pig of our Snapchat strategy services, but we have high hopes and expectations. The geofilter is not live as of yet, but should be available in several areas of UNL campus in the next few days.