Snapchat 📱announces partnership with Universal Music
California based Tech giant Snap Inc. announces a multi-year partnership with the record label and publishing rights holder- Universal Music Group
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Happy Friday People!
Yesterday, Snap Inc. and Universal Music Group announced a multi-year partnership, something that the companies called an ‘expansive’ and ‘multifaceted’ global agreement 🤝
But what is it really?
The deal will allow Snapchat’s users to incorporate UMG’s catalog of recorded music and content into creative tools, including Sounds and an augmented reality feature- Lenses.
Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, UMG’s entire recorded music catalog is available on a global basis in Snapchat’s Sounds feature, including Search and curated Playlists.
But what is the ‘Sounds’ feature? 🤔
Launched back in October 2020, Sounds by Snapchat lets users access a licensed library of songs to enhance their camera experience, and was built as a rival to the viral social media app- TikTok.
It dropped Pop Star Justin Bieber’s single- ‘Lonely’ exclusively on the platform, a day before prior to its global release on platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.
UMG is additionally developing augmented reality music Lens content featuring the company’s artists that will be regularly available in Snap’s Lens Carousel and Lens Studio, with the opportunity to feature merchandise launches and e-commerce experiences
So what is the value add here for artists?
Pop Star Olivia Rodrigo has used the platform for multiple releases, including Driver’s License, which had more than 10 million videos created on Snapchat’s Lens feature with more than 325 million views since its release 📈
Rodrigo was the first recording artist to use Snapchat’s new Augmented Reality VFX technology in Lens Studio to provide an immersive experience where the user is covered in graphics from her newly released album, Sour.
The fact that an artist can test waters using something as simple as a Snapchat filter to help create a buzz around their actual song- pulls in the streaming numbers later on.
If users get hooked onto a particular filter on Snapchat, they share it with their friends, and it creates a flywheel effect of sorts which cascades into other streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
To give an idea of how big these volumes really can be- Snapchat estimates that an average of 4 Billion Snaps are exchanged every day on its platform 🤯
Speaking on the newly announced partnership with UMG, Ben Schwerin, Snap’s SVP of Content and Partnerships, said:
“It’s been exciting to see how quickly Snapchatters have taken to our Sounds creative tool, and in turn the immense impact it has had on the music industry as they discover and share music with their friends and the community.
“Universal Music Group has been a tremendous partner over the past several years, and we’re thrilled to expand our relationship to bring Snapchatters even more music to express themselves and create engaging Snaps”
Snap Inc states that it now has multi-year deals with a number of major and independent publishers and labels, including Warner Music Group, Sony Music, Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt, and BMG Music Publishing.
This means access to the content of thousands of artists such as Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Maddona, David Guetta, Jason Derulo, Metallica, and Led Zepellin.
I could go on here, but you get the point.
Our take on this?
Snapchat was long perceived dead.
Ever since Kylie Jenner’s 2018 tweet slating the app, an act that wiped out 7% off its stock price and $1.8 billion off its market cap, it never seemed to recover.
![Larry Kim on Twitter: "In one tweet, Kylie Jenner wiped out $1.3 billion of #Snapchat's market value! Talk about #influencermarketing. 😅… "](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c0194bc-e2aa-411f-a4dd-190f924d2f10_1200x613.jpeg "Larry Kim on Twitter: "In one tweet, Kylie Jenner wiped out $1.3 billion of #Snapchat's market value! Talk about #influencermarketing. 😅… "")
Snapchat had made a major design change, something which many users including Jenner took notice of and ultimately proved to be fatal for the platform as investors started to notice and users started to drop off.
Instagram cloning Snapchat’s ‘stories’ feature simultaneously, effectively meant that it was the final nail in Snap’s coffin.
However, over the past year, Snap Inc. has made a comeback, and how 👇🏻
Amidst the pandemic-induced lows of March 2020, the share price has rallied almost 7x, with its daily active users rising to an all-time high of 280 Million in 2021 and Revenues crossing the $900 Million for the last quarter of 2020. (Source)
Looking at the latest partnerships and features being launched by Snap, coupled with earnings, user retention, and growth backing it up; it’s easy to see how another partnership with one of the biggest record labels in the world only goes on to boost the recovery of Snap 🚀
Evan Spiegel, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Snap has long maintained that he positions Snap not as a social media, but as a ‘camera’ company, and features such as Sounds and Lens make them come closer to their vision of:
‘Reinventing the camera to improve the way people live and communicate.’
Ambitious right?
That’s it for today, and have a great weekend 🍻(only to relive them as memories on Snapchat a year later🤪)
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