Tongal wanted to wrap its head around Snapchat marketing, so in mid-November the crowdsourcing contest platform encouraged its social-media-minded community to contribute ideas for major brands. Five-hundred-eighty-three creative folks quickly pitched campaign concepts, and the 10 most-mentioned brands were (in this order): Facebook, Starbucks, Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Twitter, Doritos, Google, Lego and Nike.
For the uninitiated, Snapchat, with more than 8 million users, is an increasingly popular app among millennials that lets users send photos and videos—sometimes for sexting—that disappear after moments.
Here are the five standout ideas for big-name brands, per Tongal's community.
- Victoria's Secret should push its lingerie products while embracing Snapchat's "naughty" reputation. The brand should "sext" men with self-destructing coupons to buy their significant others gifts this holiday season.
- If EA Games wants to engage its followers via the social-mobile app, it should randomly release cheat codes and hints for its console games with Easter-egg-style messages.
- Southwest Airlines ought to post random photos of an unnamed city it services via the platform's Stories feature. The first users to correctly reply (or "snap back," in Snapchat vernacular) with the city in question win free airfare to that destination.
- A user-generated content idea: A Slim Jim contest where the video footage entails the contestants chowing down one of the brand's beef items. Tongal's folks think Snapchat users will, well, eat this idea up if there's a basket of Slim Jim products to be won.
- The name of this potential appeal for Las Vegas' tourism board: "What Happens in Snapchat Stays in Snapchat." In a simple but viable application, the municipality could play off its famous tagline by offering prizes to Vegas vacationers who submit footage.
Meanwhile, per Tongal's stats, its users believe that the top marketing use cases for brands are product sneak previews (18 percent), user-generated content (14 percent), coupons (14 percent) and exclusive content (10 percent).