Snap Unveils New Camera Ads Trying to Stay Ahead of Facebook
Why Snap's User Growth Is Slowing
On Cinco de Mayo, millions of Snapchat users willingly turned their selfies into an ad for Taco Bell. The app’s augmented-reality camera filter, known on the service as a Lens, let them see their heads in the shape of a giant, wobbling hardshell taco, with lettuce and tomato poking out and the fast-food chain’s logo in the corner of the shot. In the one day it was available, the filter racked up about 224 million views.
That’s the kind of creativity and result that Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., is counting on, says Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel. On the company’s first quarterly earnings call since its March initial public offering, analysts expressed alarm that the growth of Snapchat’s audience, now about 166 million daily users, is slowing. Snap’s stock took a beating. On the May 10 call, Spiegel argued that his service allows people to be creative in ways they can’t on competing platforms.