Log 6: Snapchat Ads
I took a selfie with my mom so I could put it on my Snapchat story for Mothers' Day (as is the traditional honor given to mothers every year). I showed my mom the Mothers' Day Snapchat filters that we could choose from to add to our picture. Snapchat adds these specially designed filters for pretty much every holiday. There were several different options for our filter. I found one I liked and showed it to my mom, but she instantly pointed out that it was an advertisement. The filter featured flowers all around the border of the screen, and the name of a brand (I can't even remember what brand anymore) intertwined between the flowers. I found it interesting that, even though I knew in my brain that it was an ad, it still didn't really register with me. I'm so frequently exposed to advertising, and specifically this unique kind of advertising, that I didn't even really think about it. My mom, however, is not as accustomed to this specific kind of advertising. This made me think a lot about the advertisement that takes place on Snapchat. Every time I scroll through filters, I'm garunteed to see this brand's name. But it's not just me. If I were to choose this add to put on my story, I wouldn't just be exposing myself to this brand. I would be exposing this brand to over seventy people. This happens all the time on Snapchat, whether people realize it or not. Sometimes people don't realize that certain filters are advertisements, but most people do, and simply don't care. This type of advertising allows these brands to reach far more people than they would otherwise.
I've been in the same situation before as well. I think being able to ignore the ads on Snapchat filters just goes to show that our generation had become more and more numb to advertisements because we're exposed to them so often due to social media. Our parents' generation is new to the world of social media, making them less accustomed to the life of popups and in return more sensitive towards them. Our numbness does allow brands to be exposed to the friends we have on Snapchat when the photo is posted on our stories, but I question how effective it is since most of us younger kids tend to ignore the fact that "this filter is sponsored by Target."
ReplyDeleteI didn't even realize how much advertising we really are exposed to everyday. Now that I think about it, Snapchat does do a lot of advertising through their filters and now recently they do when you are swiping to view someone else's story. YouTube has also been doing a lot more advertising recently where with every video they have an ad before you are able to watch what you really trying to see. Instagram too has been adding a lot more advertisements when you are trying to scroll through your feed and sometimes I catch myself even liking the photo without realizing it is just an ad.
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