This Monday, Snap Inc, the parent firm operating the popular social media and AR-lite application Snapchat, announced the hiring of two ex-Meta employees to boost its immersive advertising goals.
Snap is hiring Patrick Harris as its Senior Vice President of Partnerships and David Sommer as Head of Verticals. The pair will assist in delivering personalised advertising experiences and familiarising the platform’s toolkits to third-party developers.
The news comes as Snap Inc reports an increase of 280 million daily active users, meaning the platform has a rich user base perfect for brand marketing and advertising goals.
Moreover, Snap gained its former Meta employees as the latter suffered consistent lay-offs amidst its immersive technology journey.
Snap: Fresh Enterprise Tools
At its 2023 partner summit, Snap introduced AR Enterprise Services (ARES) for creating engaging branded AR marketing and advertising content.
The new tools allow brands to create interactive content and personalised advertising avenues like AR try-on clothing, promotional wearables, and product recommendations solutions which leverage RT3D graphics and technology.
The solutions also include dedicated tools for enabling branded AR content, such as 3D Viewer, Fit Finder, AR Try-On, Enterprise Manager, and Hands-On Integration Services.
Snap’s ARES Enterprise Manager gives developers access to a frontend dashboard and backend for creating AR content. Developers can also leverage the Snap Enterprise Manager platform for real-time analytics and performance metrics,
Moreover, Snap partnered with Microsoft to integrate AR-lite filter effects on Teams, such as “World Lenses“, that allow users to place 3D objects in their environment.
Snap Lenses in Teams helps users in workplace, education, and collaboration settings learn and collaborate more effectively and create more immersive experiences for customers and partners.
The Microsoft, Snap partnership comes as the firms make Teams dialling more flexible for employees by removing the requirement for a video. Its new Avatar for Teams systems allows workers to dial in using immersive virtual humans. For example, workers who cannot share a video feed due to a poor internet connection or unsuitable working environment can still participate by utilising immersive features and audio-only dial-in options.
Snap is proving as a lasting and reliable space for branded-immersive advertising. In January, reports revealed that Snap has 300,000 content developers who have created up to 3 million Snapchat filters.
Reports at the time cited a Médiametry survey from the spring of last year, which found 94 percent of French people aged 15 to 24 were Snapchat users.
What about Meta?
News of Meta’s lay-offs is commonly populating technology media headlines. Following hurdles within its Metaverse division, Meta lay-offed roughly 11,000 employees in November and another 10,000 as of April.
The company is entering a “year of efficiency” as it records significant losses in its most recent Q1 report.
The report noted that its Reality Labs division saw a 51 percent revenue drop “due to lower Quest 2 sales” at 339 million.
Moreover, Reality Labs’ expenses topped $4.3 billion, up 18 percent year-on-year. The division’s operating losses were $4 billion alongside Reality Labs’ ongoing restructuring and employee-related costs. Meta also cut its estimates for 2023 by around 3 billion and forecast by 5 billion in its February earnings.
Meta is currently championing its Meta Quest Pro MR headset as an immersive tool for workplace operations. This year, many industry analysts expect Meta to drop a new Quest device for the consumer, hopefully pulling the Menlo Park firm out of its current hole.
