Snapchat announced it’s transformation as a media platform yesterday by launching Discover , and it seems like they just don’t want to put this notion on hold at all.
Moving ahead with the idea, here’s the next step by the transient message service : a scripted series (Snapchat’s first) having real time audience engagement with a superhero twist.
“SnapperHero”, supposed to be coming soon, will comprise of 12 episodes featuring celebrities like Anna Akana , Freddie Wong (Video Game High School), Harley Morenstein (Epic Meal Time), Jasmeet Singh (JusReign), Simone Shepherd (Hell Date; What The Funny), and Shaun McBride (Shonduras) who will be the Creative Director of the series.
Each episode will last for around 2 minutes presenting various super hero plotlines, enemies, origin stories. The main content will reside on Snapchat. It’s interesting to note that each artist is supposed to call out to their fans and gather their suggestions to build up their character and plot.
The whole experience will be sponsored by AT&T and Snapchat is only providing it’s platform for the sponsors to do so. It’s like an advertiser getting ahrd core into Snapchat user base. However, whats rather weird is that Snapchat hasn’t asked sponsors for any money yet, and they probably won’t. Snapchat has declined to comment but they may ask for a fee afterwards as a similar startegy has been adopted at both Facebook and Twitter.
SnapperHero was developed by Billy Parks (the producer of the Show Now) and Kendall Ostrow (Agent for UTA Digital Media) in collaboration with AT&T.
AT&T Engagement Marketing Director Liz Nixon said,
We want to produce and foster entertainment that engages the connected generation where they live. We saw great success in using Snapchat to engage our @SummerBreak audience and we’re excited to build on that with a Snapchat-centric series that truly empowers influencers. We’re proud to venture into this new territory and innovate branded entertainment for social media in ways that are authentic to the influencers and their platforms.
The project is produced by Fullscreen, the video company owned by Otter media as well as Astronauts Wanted, a joint venture between Judy McGrath and Sony Music.
There have been projects before that were produced by media influencers on famous media platforms and they are now targeting the Snapchat user base to provide entertainment and make money from it. We may see a lot of these projects in the near future.
