Technically, I am a millennial. With that being said, I should have felt a spark of excitement and immediately posed for a selfie when I heard Snapchat released its very first ad. However, I began to feel more like an old man trapped inside of a tech-minded, millennial woman's body and felt absolutely eager to go outside and keep all of the neighborhood kids off my lawn. 

Unfortunately for me, Snapchat is alive and well and as much as I do not want to sign-up, the mark of their first ad may change things. Also, I live in the city so I don't even have a yard to yell at the kids about. 

Why We Should Change Our Minds

Trust me, I am not the only one that is not sending seflies on Snapchat,  but if its users continuing growing at the rate they are now, I just may be. Before we get into the birth of the first Snapchat ad, let's discuss who we are reaching. 

As you can see above, SnapChat reaches a specific audience range that consists of

• Primarily women (70%)
• A youthful audience younger than 25 (71%)
• A low disposable income range that is under $50,000 (62%)

Now there are a few men, some older folk, and some people with more income too. You can scoff all you want that you are not selling products that relate to that user base, or happily dance around because you are, but either way the rapid growth of Snapchat must also be taken into consideration. 

• 30 million users were reported on Snapchat in December 2013, and by April 2014 the app had an estimated 70 million users. Currently, it has nearly 100 million active users. 
• Stories are now getting 1 billion views daily, while 760 million disappearing photos and videos are sent daily

Snapchat gained itself a raunchy, youthful reputation with the disappearing photos, but this may change with the rapidly increasing users. 

First In App Ad

The best advertisements tell you more about stuff that actually interests you. Some companies spend a lot of time and collect a lot of data about you to figure that out. The product we’re releasing today is a lot simpler. An advertisement will appear in your Recent Updates from time to time, and you can choose if you want to watch it. No biggie. It goes away after you view it or within 24 hours, just like Stories. - Snapchat Blog 

Snapchat causally mentioned their ad feature to the new users as if it were no big deal. They even said "no biggie".  The first ever Snapchat ad was for the movie Ouji. 

Snapchat's first ad is a 20 second movie trailer for "Ouija" http://t.co/zlgP2ysBYE

— Tim Peterson (@petersontee) October 18, 2014

The young, tech-savvy followers took the advertisement with stride, and begged for more. Actually, no scratch that, everyone freaked out despite the heads up from the Snapchat blog. 

*seeing Ouija on my snapchat stories* pic.twitter.com/o0yTJUZBPU

— marissa (@marissa_rebecca) October 18, 2014

HOLY FREAKING OMG OUIJA BOARD HAS A SNAPCHAT SPONSORED THING AH ITS SCARY.

— Taylor Welch (@taylorwelch1999) October 18, 2014

The ouija snapchat freaaaaked me out

— Lexis Ramirez (@lexbabyyy) October 18, 2014

How to Advertise

For now, we may need to hold off and let those with the budget test out this beta feature. We are just as happy leveraging other social media platforms in the meantime. When we find out more on the fascinating, disappearing Snapchat ads you will be the first to know. You may even be the second in-app ad!