During the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Cincinnati Bengals AFC Championship game last week, Snapchat featured an advertisement. The 30-second commercial touts the app’s augmented reality filters, but some viewers found the ad to be, well, unsettling. Because the advertisement begins by declaring “Only so much can be seen by our eyes. What if they had more vision, though?”
Coworkers are transformed into horses with the HorseHead lens, and the eerie wide-eyed expression at the end of the advertisement is created using the Shook lens. Open Snapchat and tap the smiling face symbol next to the camera shutter button to discover it there. The first filter that appears when you click on the Explore tab in the bottom right corner and type “Shook” is the one from the advertisement.
The 12th most used social networking platform overall is Snapchat: A 60-second version and the 30-second version that aired during the football game are both available for the commercial. The app has 375 million daily active users in the fourth quarter (of the year, not the game). It ranks as the twelfth most widely used social media app globally. You can download the app from the Google Play Store if you have an Android device or the App Store if you have an iPhone. According to the advertisement, using the filters “you can see your actual friends in an imagined way or make imaginary friends real.”
The responses from Twitter users largely followed Van Lathan Jr.’s statement, which stated that “this Snapchat commercial is demonic af.” “Nobody was okay with the Snapchat commercial, right?” Alison Haislip questioned. “Well, that Snapchat commercial was excessively disturbing,” tweeted Rosa Sparks.
It’s impossible not to feel sorry for Snapchat. After all, “Stories” was first made available to social media users by the app. Instagram ran with the concept and made money off of it. One of the most well-liked components of the app owned by Meta is Instagram Stories.
Snapchat reported Q4 profits of 14 cents a share, three cents a share above estimates
Yesterday, the company that owns Snapchat, SNAP, released its Q4 financial results. Revenue, at $1.30 billion, fell short of analyst expectations of $1.31 billion. Earnings of 14 cents per share were higher than the consensus prediction of 11 cents. Additionally, Snapchat reported average revenue per user of $3.47 per share, which was 2 cents per share less than what analysts had anticipated the company to say.
The total revenue for 2022 increased 12% to $4.6 billion. The business stated in a statement: “On the monetization side, we believe that the operational environment will continue challenging, as we expect the headwinds we’ve experienced over the last year to linger during Q1.” Now, does that sound nice to you?
After launching last summer, the company’s Snapchat+ membership program, which offers early access and premium features for just $3.99 a month, now has over 2 million users.
Investors are preparing to punish SNAP on Wednesday morning after the stock fell to $9.83 in after-hours trade, roughly 15% lower than Tuesday. While the 52-week low is $7.33, the 52-week high is $41.97.
The program, which was initially released for iOS in July 2011 under the name “Picaboo,” was rebranded as Snapchat in September of that same year. Snapchat was made available to Android users in October 2012. The following year, Facebook reportedly made Snapchat a $3 billion deal, which it rejected. Higher offers reportedly circulated, including one valued at $4 billion for Snapchat from Chinese e-commerce company Tencent Holdings. Prior to Wednesday morning’s dip, SNAP’s market value was $18.5 billion.
