Dive Brief:
- The Los Angeles Marathon and its main brand partner Skechers teamed up with Snapchat to create what is being billed as the longest on-demand Snapchat geofilter ever, according to promotional material for the race. The marathon will take place on March 19.
- The entire marathon course will be covered with more than 40 Snapchat geofilters, with each filter tied to a historic site or important landmark around Los Angeles, along with key points in the race, according to Mobile Marketer.
- The LA Marathon currently has 24,000 registered runners and expects to see a turnout of over half a million fans, making the campaign the largest activation for a Snapchat initiative in the app's history, Mobile Marketer reports.
Dive Insight:
In a way, it's fitting that the record-breaking geofilter campaign is happening in Los Angeles, as Snap, Snapchat's parent company, has its headquarters located there. Snap has been weathering mixed reviews since its IPO two weeks ago, including an RBC Capital Markets/Ad Age survey that found marketing professionals score Snapchat remarkably low when it comes to key metrics like ROI.
That doesn't necessarily mean big brands are backing off the platform, if the LA Marathon effort is any indication: Gatorade, Fitbit and Hyundai, among others, are partaking in the Snapchat initiative, per Mobile Marketer. The platform also partnered with the Guinness Book of World Records to account for the event.
A little positive spin and PR around the LA Marathon would probably be welcome for Snapchat. Mobile Marketer points out that there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about the geofilters from a creative perspective but, in terms of scale, the effort is impressive and further demonstrates how Snapchat might see value in bridging real-world and digital activations more broadly.
Last November, Snapchat announced a partnership with FourSquare that brought a new level of precision and robustness to geofilters, being able to target down to individuals at a store in the mall, for example. Instagram Stories, often labeled a Snapchat clone, recently introduced its own take on its rival platform's location-based targeting with geostickers.