3 Reasons Snapchat’s Brand is in Jeopardy with Snapcash Feature

The dust has settled on Monday’s announcement from Snapchat about their new feature called Snapcash - a feature that connects your debit card to your Snapchat account sending money just as easy as sending a snap to your friend.

Even though the news is more than 72 hours old, the buzz on Twitter about Snapcash is certainly trending. Unfortunately for Snapchat, their brand is taking a hit. A big hit.

The question at stake right now for Snapchat, is “Was adding Snapcash the right move?” Time will tell, but for now, there are few telling signs that this might not be the latest feature that sticks with their 100+ million monthly users and effects their branding and more importantly their leadership.

Here’s why:

1. Security

Just five weeks ago in mid-October, Snapchat had 98,000 photos and videos hacked and posted online. Sure, Snapchat is claiming that all hacked content was from third party apps, but the perception is that Snapchat has been and is still viable for a hack.

The first thing that puts their branding and leadership in jeopardy, is to question why they would they release this feature a matter of weeks after this news broke. Type in Snapcash in Twitter search and thousands of tweets similar to Colin’s will appear (along with claims that people will be paying for nudes – that’s a whole other issue Snapchat needs to handle).

SnapCash seems like a great way to get hacked and taken for everything I own.

— Colin Huber (@CallOnColin) November 19, 2014

 

2. Arriving early to the party

Paying with your phone and transferring money on your smartphone is not new technology considering there are apps like Xoom, Cash, and Transferwise (and Paypal) out there already. Without a doubt, our society is headed into a more mainstream habit of replacing our wallet and cards for our phones. According to MarketWatch, more than 200,000 retailers have signed on to use ApplePay, Apple’s latest technology to late individuals pay with their phone. However, Snaptchat is not Apple. They are a messaging app (that in my opinion is killin’ it) with a majority of their users averaging 15-18 years old sending 700 million photos and videos per day.  This target demographic is perfect and I’m sure Snapchat and Square (partner in Snapcash) are trying to capture them (early on might I add). However, is Snapchat going to educate teenagers how to be responsible with their money? (I doubt it).

This may be a sign of a misstep in Snapchat’s leadership while losing focus of why the app was created – to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of friends or followers.

3. Digital voice is not helping their brand perception (or reputation)

Have you ever heard of Dollar Shave Club? A disruption for buying affordable razor cartridges for the everyday man (or college bro). They’re branding and voice is spot on to their target demographic. Just take a look at their first trailer and their recent commercial. Yes, it’s light hearted, fun, and what appears to be low-budget (even though it’s not).

Now let’s now look at Snapchat’s Snapcash commercial:

Would any of you trust your debit card with these clowns? Now, I’m not saying Snapchat can’t have some fun (after all their target demo is 15-18 year olds) but does this commercial convey security, reliable, and “sign me up”? So far, Snapchat’s “commercials” and Snapstories releasing new features have been young, organic, fresh, and by real people that make you want to update the app. This recent commercial is an over the top production that resembles Dollar Shave Club’s digital voice and misses the mark for their branding. Instead, they should have consider leaving out the “dancers and old monopoly man” inside your phone that literally are taking a percentage of your money and creating a Snapstory with real people in a real setting sending money to each other.

What are your thoughts on Snapchat’s new feature and the way they rolled it out? Would you use it or for the parents out there, let your kids use this new feature?

Thanks for reading. -Kevin

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