Snapchat video mesaging application scored an advertising deal with Viacom on Tuesday. Both companies agreed to allow Viacom selling advertising for Snapchat content.
Snapchat was a popular video message app which gained a popularity with its "story" created for each users based on users' posting. Despites its popularity, Snapchat was not able to go mainstream. On the other hand, investors of Viacom has raised concern about entering the Internet market.
On Tuesday, both companies agreed to sign an advertising deal. This multiyear agreement that allows the Viacom to sell advertising on Snapchat's behalf.
The deal gives benefit to both companies, which have been struggling to face competition. Snapchat will be able to attract big advertisers, while Viacom will be able to extend its advertising arm to a wider audience in the Internet business.
Viacom Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis told Wall Street Journal, "We had early on made a big commitment to developing premium, original content for the channels we had on the platform. Based on the success we had, we started talking about what we could do beyond that."
While Snapchat Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan said in a statement as cited by Los Angeles Times, "We can now offer television advertisers a way to tell their stories across television and mobile in a frictionless way."
According to Reuters, Snapchat and Viacom's deal includes advertising in Snapchat's un-partnered "Live Stories." This the the features unique to Snapchat, that provide curated submitted posts from users in specific geographic locations, which connect the users to a specific events or large holidays.
Both parties have not announced the exact amount of the deal.
Snapchat was founded in 2011, started as a class project in Stanford University. The founders, trio Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown were a student when they started building an application which aimed to communicate what they called as a full range of human emotion.
Focusing on allowing users to share their photos and videos through its platform, Snapchat was reported to have a more than 7 billion daily video views. Even so, the app was not been able to enter mainstream, and even experienced problems with users privacy and security.
While Viacom is a spinoff of the CBS Corporation in 2005 focused on cable television and cinema production, while CBS will specialized on commercial broadcasting, publishing, and television production. CBS Corporation itself is a spinoff from the original Viacom founded in 1971 as a TV division of Columbia Broadcasting System.
Since the 2005 spinoff, the New York-based company has been trying to enter the Internet market to expand its audience based and reaching out to millennial age groups. The deal with Snapchat will provide exactly what the cable TV needs.
Viacom and Snapchat has made an advertising deal on Tuesday. Both companies agreed to allow Viacom selling advertising for Snapchat content. The deal will expand the audience and market for both companies who struggle amidst the competition.
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