There isn’t anyone who knows the benefits of marketer-creator collaborations quite like Patrick Harris. In this episode, we talk with Snap’s President of Americas and Partnerships about bridging the gap between brands and creators. Plus, Patrick takes us through Snap’s most recent AI integration with more than 200 million users and 20 billion messages – the chatbot named My AI.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You know it's the time to start paying it forward
and giving back and making sure we can be a lamp,
a ladder, or a lifeboat to the talent in our industry.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company. We're all
explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming
our lives and the way we do business at a
breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the greatest
business minds and strongest leaders who will share how they
built companies from the ground up or transformed them from
the inside out. My bet is you'll pick up a
(00:37):
lesson or two along the way.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It's all good.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's a great pleasure to welcome Patrick Harris, President of
the Americas and Partnerships at SNAP, but more importantly a
very long time colleague and friend in the industry. Patrick.
I'm happy that you can join me this morning on
Good Company.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Michael, thank you for having me and delighted to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'd love if you would kind of kick us off
by just giving a little bit of your journey both
you know, kind of personally and professionally that led you
to this role as President of the Americas and Partnerships
at SNAP.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, I'll start first, I guess on the personal side.
So I grew up in northern California. My father was
an Air Force pilot turned entrepreneur. My mom was a
special education teacher for thirty plus years in the California
Unified School District. So my parents definitely shaped opposing ends
of the spectrum in terms of like really looking at
(01:33):
things from a conservative point of view or also from
a liberal point of view. And the lessons I learned
and the things that I learned from my parents, and
luckily they're both still with us today, have really shaped
who I am. I had the opportunity to go to
university in southern California, and in the mid nineties there
was a thing called the Internet that was starting to
take shape, and I remember taking my first HTML class
(01:54):
at the University of San Diego, I think it was
in nineteen ninety six, and that led to a professional
curiosity that then took me to New York City as
an intern. And this was about the time that Turner
Broadcasting had launched a website called CNN dot com and
I was hired as an intern. You know, at turn Interactive,
which you know Richie said to me, Hey, we're going
(02:16):
to sell ads on the Internet on this site called
CNN dot com. And then that really started my professional journey.
And so after I graduated, I moved back to New
York very quickly and pursued a role in technology, and
that led me to spending a few years in web
one ozer working for some gaming companies, notably a company
called Uproar and price Point, which was started by a
(02:37):
guy named Chris Hassett. And then I spent from the
late nineties kind of to early two thousand and four
at a little search engine called asked Jeeves if you
remember the butler, and then had the opportunity to go
with some friends who you know, started a company called
Reprize Media, sort of sitting at the intersection of search
at the time, as it was pretty embryonic in its stage.
(02:57):
So spent ten years kind of developing and working in
the search engine marketing landscape. Eventually took a role at Microsoft.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It's funny when you started this and you said nineteen
ninety six, I remember when you talked about this thing
called the Internet. I remember launching a division at Western
International Media that I was running at the time, and
we started a quote new media division. You know, I
always said, you then are in the category in my
mind of one of those digital pioneers in the truest
(03:26):
sense of the word.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, I've been lucky along the way to work for
some really great leaders and having had the opportunity to
work at Microsoft, you know, joined Facebook in twenty eleven
when it was a very small company, sort of misunderstood
at the time, and then having spent a dozen or
so years there working with some incredible leaders and incredible people,
and you know that takes me to today. I had
the opportunity to join Snap back in May of this
(03:50):
year and come on to lead the global partnerships organization,
and as recently, I guess as five or six weeks ago,
Evan also asked me if I would help take over
the rains and lead our sales business here in the
Americas as well. And so it's just a real privilege
and a real honor. And I love this industry. I
love the opportunities, and I love the fact that it's
(04:11):
so dynamic, and we continue to pioneer and chart a
course for what the future of technology and brands and
how that helps unlock economic opportunity for everybody. You know,
the richness of the opportunity today still feels as rich
as it did back in the nineties when we were
first getting started with this thing we call digital.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, no, no, no. And you know, I always caution
people these days when you say digital, what do you
really mean? I mean, it's called life. We've all grown
up with the concept of B to B or B
two C and now everybody thinks in terms of B
to H, you know, business to human as opposed to
business to business or business to consumer, and it's kind
of like the word digital, like we're all digital. And Patrick,
(04:54):
I want to get into some specifics in your current role,
and you just announced something that the Creator Collab campaigns.
You know, it's such an interesting moment in terms of
the creator economy and the creator community and the tools
and the ways that we're engaging and the we the brands,
(05:15):
we the consumers are engaging with the creator economy. What
have you seen you know, from your perspective, is a
benefit of that in terms of bridging that gap with
brands and creators?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, I think if you step back, there's there's a
few things there there are definitely these secular trends that
are defining a lot of what's happening sort of in
current technology and a lot of like these mobile social
apps that you see today, So the use of AI,
the use of AR, you know, the fact that that
consumers are looking to engage not only with their friends,
(05:49):
but with you know, the creators and people and brands
that they most admire and want to follow, and they're
usually doing this through the means of short form video
and so, you know, it's interesting. The week I started
back in May at snap was actually the same week
as the New Fronts, and at the New Fronts, we
announced this Creator Cloud Studio which you're referencing, and it
(06:10):
was really designed to offer you know, what I would
describe as direct access between the creator community on Snapchat
and just making it easier for a lot of advertisers
and agencies to adapt the way that they're working with creators.
And so we've been in the process this year of
really developing the tools that help these creators activate partnerships
on snap So this is everything from like discovering snap
(06:33):
stars via our API integrations, or using these other enhanced
tools to bring like free existing paid partnerships and sponsorships
and bringing that work onto Snap and seemingly making it
easy to turn that content into ads, and what we've
seen as a real spike and engagement and interests, particularly
from the Snap stars. And I think what's most interesting
(06:55):
in working with a lot of these Snap stars, they
love that they can just be their their offuthentic selves
on our platform. It doesn't have to be as perfect
and as polished and maybe in the way that they're
producing or creating on other platforms, because it's a creative
to what people expect and whether when they're communicating with
either their friends or family. And so you know, again,
(07:15):
this is a this is a pretty like early stage
process for us. We're less than a year into really
figuring out, again, how do we engage creators so they
can have reach, they can have relevance, and they can
drive revenue and make a living on our platform. But
then also how do we bring the brands along to
make sure that we're driving and delivering real, meaningful business
outcomes for those brands that are doing creator lid campaigns.
(07:37):
And so I would say continue to watch this space.
We're investing here, and we're looking for more ways to
bring value not only to the creators, but to the
brands as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You know, last month, you guys, you know, created a
partnership with Microsoft. Talk to me about that in terms of,
you know, your AI chatbot and how it's all playing
out in the context of your newly invigorated Microsoft relationship.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah. Well, my Microsoft's always been a great partner and
they've been a great partner to snap as we've gone
down this my AI journey. And again, my AI is
a relatively new tool, and it was actually one of
the things when I was going through the process of
interviewing a snap I was just amazed at the speed
in which like we were able to develop new tools
(08:24):
and services like this for our community. And so since
launching MYI earlier this year, we have more than two
hundred million people that are using it, and people have
sent more than twenty billion messages. And I think that
makes my AI like probably one of the most used
AI chatbots that are out there. And we believe these
conversations with MYI they really have the potential to improve
(08:48):
like a variety of experiences across Snapchat because it helps
us understand the community's interests and it does it really
in a private in a privacy centric way, so you know,
we can use the conversations and to really enhance like
a lot of the key optimizations that we do for marketers,
including things like Snapchat lifestyle categories. So these are categories
(09:08):
that are historically based on factors like you know, content
that a snapchatter watches, and we can take these new
signals with MYI and really enhance the quality and the
depth of these Snapchat life life cycle categories, and ultimately
we can do things like boost ad relevance across the app.
But when I look at sort of the monetization opportunities,
I mean, I'll just take you back. You were so
(09:28):
gracious enough to invite me for lunch a few weeks
ago in New York City, and so one of the
things I could say to MYI is, Hey, I'm I'm
having lunch with Michael Cassen. It's going to be in
Midtown Manhattan. I want to go to a place that
is not Michael's, because he's there all the time and
he knows that place. But I want a quality Italian
meal that's going to be forty dollars or less for entrees.
(09:49):
Where should I go MYI is going to serve up
like a really great recommendation for me in terms of
where I should go. But the opportunity in the partnership
today with Microsoft is that they can also deliver an
AD from say open table or from uber eats, or
have something that is you know, hopefully very relevant to
the subject matter and can help you actually achieve something
(10:11):
that you're looking to do. And so again this is
a very new, very early partnership. And so one of
these days, Michael, what we're going to do is I'm
going to get you out to launch at a place
that is not Michael's in mid tum Manhattan. We're going
to We're gonna put this one to the test.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Well, I like it, and you know I always like
to be the unintended beneficiary of technology, and here's a
perfect example. I'll get a good meal out of it. Patrick,
where at an interesting point in the market, what's your
sense of the market right now in terms of brands
who you know, they're showing up and engaging in so
(10:47):
many different ways with consumers and emerging channels and places
and spaces. What do you think the brand's view of
the market is today?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I think I mean, given the vast number of
channels and sort of connected experiences I think that are
available to most marketers today, especially in to the world's
largest you know, global marketers that are out there, I
think there's just so much competition for attention. We're all
constantly being bombarded for our at tension every single day.
And so what I like to do is think about
(11:17):
sort of the superpowers of the different platforms, you know,
the different experiences that marketers can use today. I think
the plus is that there are so many new tools.
There's a lot of diversity in the ecosystem that you
can take advantage of. But the complexity comes along with that.
And so when I look at Snapchat in particular, what's
(11:38):
most interesting is, you know, when I look at sort
of the unique audience and the key jobs to be
done for Snapchat, it's like, hey, seventy five percent of
the people actually come to really interact with their closest
friends and stay connected with their family. And again, this
is about like real friends and real relationships. And in
many ways we sort of think of snap as being
(11:59):
the antidote to traditional social media. And again we sit
at some of those secular trends that are defining the
ways that consumers want to use applications today.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And Patrick, you know, the issues that are very important now,
maybe more than ever, but aren't as headline news as
they were around brand safety and hate speech and you know,
political dialogue and whatnot in social media. Snap's position was
always very clear to be celebrated, and you guys have
(12:30):
really been able to stay out of that dialogue. People
don't look at Snap through that same lens, and I
think that's because of the you know, pronouncements and the
actual work as it plays out. Well, let's say you
about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I think
we've just always been laser focused on continuing to do
its best, you know, for the Snapchat community and an argue,
you know, the world, and that means creating an environment
where you know, everyone feels comfortable sharing who they are
with their friends, doing things like human review, not collecting
as much personally identifiable information, and making sure that you
(13:08):
don't just have brand safety, Michael, but especially in this moment,
it's really about platform safety, and I think that making
sure that you're creating the right conditions for having environments
where again, people can be safe and still connect in
really authentic ways. Is just a really important part of
our ethos as a company.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And critical Let me ask you another question. I've come
up with a series of words that kind of reflect
the moments we're in, and you can choose any of them,
all of them, or none of them to react to.
I'll start with the T words trust, transparency, talent, technology,
(13:51):
and transformation. I think if you look across the industries
that we focus on, i e. The intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment, sports,
and technology, where we live kind of where I think
you live. And then you get to my sea words.
So I gave you the T words trust, transparency, talent, technology, transformation,
(14:12):
I'll give you my sea words content, commerce, culture, creativity, community,
and curation.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I love that framing. And on the tees, you know,
I think both technology and talent. I think sometimes there's
a bias in the current rhetoric, especially around AI. In fact,
it sounds like some of the rhetoric we heard in
the nineties Michael about like the impact of the Internet
on GDP, on real jobs, on wage growth, on all
(14:40):
of the things that people thought, hey, this is this
is going to be a destroyer of growth and of jobs,
and in fact, you know, it couldn't have been more wrong.
So when I look at, you know, what the current
landscape looks like for tech today, you know, it's always
incredible because I think we sort of like highly overestimate
a lot of the near term technology, the improvements, and
(15:00):
as you know, we underestimate the longer term. But when
you see, you know, what's happening in terms of the tools,
the speed, the creativity, the you know, the lower cost
of entry especially you know, I look at a market
like India. We just crossed two hundred million monthly active
users in India, and it's just incredible to watch, you
(15:21):
know again snap take off in a way in emerging
markets around the world. On the talent side, like this
is actually something I'm concerned about, Like I, you know,
when when I entered this business, there was such a
hope and there was such a promise and this was
a place where you could build a long term career
and you could learn and you can grow, And personally
I still feel like that today. But I don't know
(15:43):
if we're doing enough two early career types to really
show them the same way and what the opportunities look like,
and so I think in this post pandemic world where
you know, there's lots of arguments around hybrid full remote
return to office environments for learning, environments for apprenticeship, like,
(16:04):
I'm actually really worried about talent and I think that
this is something as an industry we just need to
do better tackling.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Before you go to the c's, I tell people I
learned this from Justin Smith when he was the CEO
of Bloomberg Media. Now you run Semaphore, but I learned
this from Justin in an interview I did with him
when he said, yes, I'm the CEO of Bloomberg Media,
but I'm actually the CTO. I said, gee, I didn't
know you were a technologist. He goes, no talent, he said,
(16:31):
the role of a CEO is to really be the CTO,
the chief talent office, to make sure you surround yourself
with the right people and you have the right people
in the role. So I always that's always stayed with
me as a real consideration of what my job is,
and any leader's job, not just the CEO, but any
leader's job. You lead an organization, your job is yes
to be president of you know, you know all the
(16:54):
things you have, but it's also to make sure you have.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The right team.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Absolutely, And if you just look at demography here in
the US, you've got a huge concentration of baby boomers
that have left the workforce or in the process of leading.
You've got folks like myself and gen X that you know,
have seen lots of ups and downs in the market
and are starting to take on more leadership roles inside
of important organizations. The millennials are growing older, they're having children,
(17:21):
they're buying homes, and gen Z is going to be
the highest populace of the work environment in a very
near amount of time, and so there are going to be, Michael,
I think, just different requirements for engagement with this generation.
I think again, we've got an opportunity to bring people
along because you know, for an industry that's given me
(17:42):
so much and I know is given you so much,
you know, it's the time to start paying it forward
and giving back and making sure we can be a lamp,
a ladder, or a lifeboat to the talent in our industry.
And I think that's a that's a really important responsibility
that I that I feel as a leader today.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It's what I said earlier, it's business to you. Yeah,
and look this, see words let me let me let
me jump back to those for a moment. The reason
I began with content and commerce. I rarely hear the
word commerce not modified by the word content. Now, commerce
of any sort you drive it with content in some way.
And again, curation, you know, community, culture critically important to
(18:21):
all of us organizationally, but in you know, in our
day jobs, as I use that expression, but you know,
in the life we live.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, and I don't want I don't want to forget
your other c which I love is creativity. I mean,
especially in a world post att and looking at you know,
all the different privacy regulations that I think so many
of us are navigating. In many ways, we're going back
to the future in the media communications services sort of landscape,
and in many ways, Michael, we've been talking about creativity
(18:49):
as being the new targeting when you pair creativity with community.
You know. One of the things that was so surprising
to me when I came to Snap is like I
had the bias that hey, this is just for you know, youth,
and it's interesting when I look in a market like
the UK, you know, fifty percent of snaps audience is
actually over the age of twenty five. But we do
reach youth too in a really concentrated way. I mean,
(19:11):
we reach ninety percent of people that are thirteen to
twenty four and over seventy five percent of people thirteen
to thirty four in over twenty five countries. And what's
interesting is, you know, you continue to see youth adopt
the platform, but you continue to see you stay on
the platform as they age up. And when I think
about community, I think sometimes marketers and even maybe other competitors,
(19:35):
they think, well, hey, I can reach youth in these
other places. And what was so surprising to me, Michael,
is that, you know, if you look at just sort
of you know, the percentage of daily snapchatters that are
sixteen plus that don't use some of these other platforms,
the unduplicated reach that you find in this community. Again,
because it's a different job to be done. It's attached
(19:55):
to creativity, it's attached to ways that you communicate with
your friends. It's just very different in any other sort
of traditional social platform. You know, that power of community,
that power to have that creativity and that camera in
your pocket, that power to engage with talent and the
creators that power to find the best restaurant where Michael
(20:15):
and Patrick can have lunch in Midtown together again. I'm
blown away by the opportunity. And I think, you know
it's I love your teas and c's because for me,
the ones that stuck out really is the talent and
tech and the creativity and community.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
If we're having this conversation five years from now, other
than me having more gray hair, what do you what
do you think?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, listen, I've learned not to not to make future predictions.
And although I'm not a product person or an engineer,
I mean I think from a snap perspective, I would
just love to continue seeing us be you know, the
platform for your real friends, your real relationships, a place
where you can be your authentic self, where you can
actually experience more joy than you sperience anywhere else online.
(21:01):
And I think you know, those tools for creativity, for
self expression. Also this ability in the future to really
bridge online experiences and real life experiences one of the
things I've loved so much since I've joined her. If
you've been to a RAMS game recently at so far,
or you've been to a concert, at Barclays in New
York City. If you see the way that our AR
(21:25):
has been integrated into the production in stadiums, like during
you know, the kiss cam during a time out of
a RAMS game versus the forty nine ers, like these
opportunities to have like digital experiences with that really powerful
device in your hand, but also sharing it with fifty
thousand people in a stadium and you're experiencing something in
(21:46):
real life. You know. I think five years from now,
we're only going to see those types of opportunities become exponential,
and I think that's what's really exciting. Tech has gotten
a bad rap for being isolating, especially in the pandemic,
and really leading to more depression, leading to more things
that I think none of us want in our societies.
(22:07):
And I think the real opportunity and one of the
things I love most about being at SNAP today is
like this real power and authentic relationships, but this power
in bridging both real life physical experiences and also those
digital experiences.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Well, Patrick Harris, I'm looking forward to being on that
ride with you. I want to thank you for joining
good company, Thank you for having me. I'm Michael Casson.
Thanks for listening. To good Company.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. A special thanks
to Lena Peterson, chief Brand Officer and Managing Director of
media Link for her vision I'm Good Company, and to
Jen Sealing, vice President Marketing Communications of media Link for programming,
amazing talent and content
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You know it's the time to start paying it forward
and giving back and making sure we can be a lamp,
a ladder, or a lifeboat to the talent in our industry.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company. We're all
explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming
our lives and the way we do business at a
breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the greatest
business minds and strongest leaders who will share how they
built companies from the ground up or transformed them from
the inside out. My bet is you'll pick up a
(00:37):
lesson or two along the way.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It's all good.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's a great pleasure to welcome Patrick Harris, President of
the Americas and Partnerships at SNAP, but more importantly a
very long time colleague and friend in the industry. Patrick.
I'm happy that you can join me this morning on
Good Company.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Michael, thank you for having me and delighted to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'd love if you would kind of kick us off
by just giving a little bit of your journey both
you know, kind of personally and professionally that led you
to this role as President of the Americas and Partnerships
at SNAP.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, I'll start first, I guess on the personal side.
So I grew up in northern California. My father was
an Air Force pilot turned entrepreneur. My mom was a
special education teacher for thirty plus years in the California
Unified School District. So my parents definitely shaped opposing ends
of the spectrum in terms of like really looking at
(01:33):
things from a conservative point of view or also from
a liberal point of view. And the lessons I learned
and the things that I learned from my parents, and
luckily they're both still with us today, have really shaped
who I am. I had the opportunity to go to
university in southern California, and in the mid nineties there
was a thing called the Internet that was starting to
take shape, and I remember taking my first HTML class
(01:54):
at the University of San Diego, I think it was
in nineteen ninety six, and that led to a professional
curiosity that then took me to New York City as
an intern. And this was about the time that Turner
Broadcasting had launched a website called CNN dot com and
I was hired as an intern. You know, at turn Interactive,
which you know Richie said to me, Hey, we're going
(02:16):
to sell ads on the Internet on this site called
CNN dot com. And then that really started my professional journey.
And so after I graduated, I moved back to New
York very quickly and pursued a role in technology, and
that led me to spending a few years in web
one ozer working for some gaming companies, notably a company
called Uproar and price Point, which was started by a
(02:37):
guy named Chris Hassett. And then I spent from the
late nineties kind of to early two thousand and four
at a little search engine called asked Jeeves if you
remember the butler, and then had the opportunity to go
with some friends who you know, started a company called
Reprize Media, sort of sitting at the intersection of search
at the time, as it was pretty embryonic in its stage.
(02:57):
So spent ten years kind of developing and working in
the search engine marketing landscape. Eventually took a role at Microsoft.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It's funny when you started this and you said nineteen
ninety six, I remember when you talked about this thing
called the Internet. I remember launching a division at Western
International Media that I was running at the time, and
we started a quote new media division. You know, I
always said, you then are in the category in my
mind of one of those digital pioneers in the truest
(03:26):
sense of the word.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, I've been lucky along the way to work for
some really great leaders and having had the opportunity to
work at Microsoft, you know, joined Facebook in twenty eleven
when it was a very small company, sort of misunderstood
at the time, and then having spent a dozen or
so years there working with some incredible leaders and incredible people,
and you know that takes me to today. I had
the opportunity to join Snap back in May of this
(03:50):
year and come on to lead the global partnerships organization,
and as recently, I guess as five or six weeks ago,
Evan also asked me if I would help take over
the rains and lead our sales business here in the
Americas as well. And so it's just a real privilege
and a real honor. And I love this industry. I
love the opportunities, and I love the fact that it's
(04:11):
so dynamic, and we continue to pioneer and chart a
course for what the future of technology and brands and
how that helps unlock economic opportunity for everybody. You know,
the richness of the opportunity today still feels as rich
as it did back in the nineties when we were
first getting started with this thing we call digital.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, no, no, no. And you know, I always caution
people these days when you say digital, what do you
really mean? I mean, it's called life. We've all grown
up with the concept of B to B or B
two C and now everybody thinks in terms of B
to H, you know, business to human as opposed to
business to business or business to consumer, and it's kind
of like the word digital, like we're all digital. And Patrick,
(04:54):
I want to get into some specifics in your current role,
and you just announced something that the Creator Collab campaigns.
You know, it's such an interesting moment in terms of
the creator economy and the creator community and the tools
and the ways that we're engaging and the we the brands,
(05:15):
we the consumers are engaging with the creator economy. What
have you seen you know, from your perspective, is a
benefit of that in terms of bridging that gap with
brands and creators?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, I think if you step back, there's there's a
few things there there are definitely these secular trends that
are defining a lot of what's happening sort of in
current technology and a lot of like these mobile social
apps that you see today, So the use of AI,
the use of AR, you know, the fact that that
consumers are looking to engage not only with their friends,
(05:49):
but with you know, the creators and people and brands
that they most admire and want to follow, and they're
usually doing this through the means of short form video
and so, you know, it's interesting. The week I started
back in May at snap was actually the same week
as the New Fronts, and at the New Fronts, we
announced this Creator Cloud Studio which you're referencing, and it
(06:10):
was really designed to offer you know, what I would
describe as direct access between the creator community on Snapchat
and just making it easier for a lot of advertisers
and agencies to adapt the way that they're working with creators.
And so we've been in the process this year of
really developing the tools that help these creators activate partnerships
on snap So this is everything from like discovering snap
(06:33):
stars via our API integrations, or using these other enhanced
tools to bring like free existing paid partnerships and sponsorships
and bringing that work onto Snap and seemingly making it
easy to turn that content into ads, and what we've
seen as a real spike and engagement and interests, particularly
from the Snap stars. And I think what's most interesting
(06:55):
in working with a lot of these Snap stars, they
love that they can just be their their offuthentic selves
on our platform. It doesn't have to be as perfect
and as polished and maybe in the way that they're
producing or creating on other platforms, because it's a creative
to what people expect and whether when they're communicating with
either their friends or family. And so you know, again,
(07:15):
this is a this is a pretty like early stage
process for us. We're less than a year into really
figuring out, again, how do we engage creators so they
can have reach, they can have relevance, and they can
drive revenue and make a living on our platform. But
then also how do we bring the brands along to
make sure that we're driving and delivering real, meaningful business
outcomes for those brands that are doing creator lid campaigns.
(07:37):
And so I would say continue to watch this space.
We're investing here, and we're looking for more ways to
bring value not only to the creators, but to the
brands as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You know, last month, you guys, you know, created a
partnership with Microsoft. Talk to me about that in terms of,
you know, your AI chatbot and how it's all playing
out in the context of your newly invigorated Microsoft relationship.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah. Well, my Microsoft's always been a great partner and
they've been a great partner to snap as we've gone
down this my AI journey. And again, my AI is
a relatively new tool, and it was actually one of
the things when I was going through the process of
interviewing a snap I was just amazed at the speed
in which like we were able to develop new tools
(08:24):
and services like this for our community. And so since
launching MYI earlier this year, we have more than two
hundred million people that are using it, and people have
sent more than twenty billion messages. And I think that
makes my AI like probably one of the most used
AI chatbots that are out there. And we believe these
conversations with MYI they really have the potential to improve
(08:48):
like a variety of experiences across Snapchat because it helps
us understand the community's interests and it does it really
in a private in a privacy centric way, so you know,
we can use the conversations and to really enhance like
a lot of the key optimizations that we do for marketers,
including things like Snapchat lifestyle categories. So these are categories
(09:08):
that are historically based on factors like you know, content
that a snapchatter watches, and we can take these new
signals with MYI and really enhance the quality and the
depth of these Snapchat life life cycle categories, and ultimately
we can do things like boost ad relevance across the app.
But when I look at sort of the monetization opportunities,
I mean, I'll just take you back. You were so
(09:28):
gracious enough to invite me for lunch a few weeks
ago in New York City, and so one of the
things I could say to MYI is, Hey, I'm I'm
having lunch with Michael Cassen. It's going to be in
Midtown Manhattan. I want to go to a place that
is not Michael's, because he's there all the time and
he knows that place. But I want a quality Italian
meal that's going to be forty dollars or less for entrees.
(09:49):
Where should I go MYI is going to serve up
like a really great recommendation for me in terms of
where I should go. But the opportunity in the partnership
today with Microsoft is that they can also deliver an
AD from say open table or from uber eats, or
have something that is you know, hopefully very relevant to
the subject matter and can help you actually achieve something
(10:11):
that you're looking to do. And so again this is
a very new, very early partnership. And so one of
these days, Michael, what we're going to do is I'm
going to get you out to launch at a place
that is not Michael's in mid tum Manhattan. We're going
to We're gonna put this one to the test.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Well, I like it, and you know I always like
to be the unintended beneficiary of technology, and here's a
perfect example. I'll get a good meal out of it. Patrick,
where at an interesting point in the market, what's your
sense of the market right now in terms of brands
who you know, they're showing up and engaging in so
(10:47):
many different ways with consumers and emerging channels and places
and spaces. What do you think the brand's view of
the market is today?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I think I mean, given the vast number of
channels and sort of connected experiences I think that are
available to most marketers today, especially in to the world's
largest you know, global marketers that are out there, I
think there's just so much competition for attention. We're all
constantly being bombarded for our at tension every single day.
And so what I like to do is think about
(11:17):
sort of the superpowers of the different platforms, you know,
the different experiences that marketers can use today. I think
the plus is that there are so many new tools.
There's a lot of diversity in the ecosystem that you
can take advantage of. But the complexity comes along with that.
And so when I look at Snapchat in particular, what's
(11:38):
most interesting is, you know, when I look at sort
of the unique audience and the key jobs to be
done for Snapchat, it's like, hey, seventy five percent of
the people actually come to really interact with their closest
friends and stay connected with their family. And again, this
is about like real friends and real relationships. And in
many ways we sort of think of snap as being
(11:59):
the antidote to traditional social media. And again we sit
at some of those secular trends that are defining the
ways that consumers want to use applications today.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And Patrick, you know, the issues that are very important now,
maybe more than ever, but aren't as headline news as
they were around brand safety and hate speech and you know,
political dialogue and whatnot in social media. Snap's position was
always very clear to be celebrated, and you guys have
(12:30):
really been able to stay out of that dialogue. People
don't look at Snap through that same lens, and I
think that's because of the you know, pronouncements and the
actual work as it plays out. Well, let's say you
about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I think
we've just always been laser focused on continuing to do
its best, you know, for the Snapchat community and an argue,
you know, the world, and that means creating an environment
where you know, everyone feels comfortable sharing who they are
with their friends, doing things like human review, not collecting
as much personally identifiable information, and making sure that you
(13:08):
don't just have brand safety, Michael, but especially in this moment,
it's really about platform safety, and I think that making
sure that you're creating the right conditions for having environments
where again, people can be safe and still connect in
really authentic ways. Is just a really important part of
our ethos as a company.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And critical Let me ask you another question. I've come
up with a series of words that kind of reflect
the moments we're in, and you can choose any of them,
all of them, or none of them to react to.
I'll start with the T words trust, transparency, talent, technology,
(13:51):
and transformation. I think if you look across the industries
that we focus on, i e. The intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment, sports,
and technology, where we live kind of where I think
you live. And then you get to my sea words.
So I gave you the T words trust, transparency, talent, technology, transformation,
(14:12):
I'll give you my sea words content, commerce, culture, creativity, community,
and curation.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I love that framing. And on the tees, you know,
I think both technology and talent. I think sometimes there's
a bias in the current rhetoric, especially around AI. In fact,
it sounds like some of the rhetoric we heard in
the nineties Michael about like the impact of the Internet
on GDP, on real jobs, on wage growth, on all
(14:40):
of the things that people thought, hey, this is this
is going to be a destroyer of growth and of jobs,
and in fact, you know, it couldn't have been more wrong.
So when I look at, you know, what the current
landscape looks like for tech today, you know, it's always
incredible because I think we sort of like highly overestimate
a lot of the near term technology, the improvements, and
(15:00):
as you know, we underestimate the longer term. But when
you see, you know, what's happening in terms of the tools,
the speed, the creativity, the you know, the lower cost
of entry especially you know, I look at a market
like India. We just crossed two hundred million monthly active
users in India, and it's just incredible to watch, you
(15:21):
know again snap take off in a way in emerging
markets around the world. On the talent side, like this
is actually something I'm concerned about, Like I, you know,
when when I entered this business, there was such a
hope and there was such a promise and this was
a place where you could build a long term career
and you could learn and you can grow, And personally
I still feel like that today. But I don't know
(15:43):
if we're doing enough two early career types to really
show them the same way and what the opportunities look like,
and so I think in this post pandemic world where
you know, there's lots of arguments around hybrid full remote
return to office environments for learning, environments for apprenticeship, like,
(16:04):
I'm actually really worried about talent and I think that
this is something as an industry we just need to
do better tackling.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Before you go to the c's, I tell people I
learned this from Justin Smith when he was the CEO
of Bloomberg Media. Now you run Semaphore, but I learned
this from Justin in an interview I did with him
when he said, yes, I'm the CEO of Bloomberg Media,
but I'm actually the CTO. I said, gee, I didn't
know you were a technologist. He goes, no talent, he said,
(16:31):
the role of a CEO is to really be the CTO,
the chief talent office, to make sure you surround yourself
with the right people and you have the right people
in the role. So I always that's always stayed with
me as a real consideration of what my job is,
and any leader's job, not just the CEO, but any
leader's job. You lead an organization, your job is yes
to be president of you know, you know all the
(16:54):
things you have, but it's also to make sure you have.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The right team.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Absolutely, And if you just look at demography here in
the US, you've got a huge concentration of baby boomers
that have left the workforce or in the process of leading.
You've got folks like myself and gen X that you know,
have seen lots of ups and downs in the market
and are starting to take on more leadership roles inside
of important organizations. The millennials are growing older, they're having children,
(17:21):
they're buying homes, and gen Z is going to be
the highest populace of the work environment in a very
near amount of time, and so there are going to be, Michael,
I think, just different requirements for engagement with this generation.
I think again, we've got an opportunity to bring people
along because you know, for an industry that's given me
(17:42):
so much and I know is given you so much,
you know, it's the time to start paying it forward
and giving back and making sure we can be a lamp,
a ladder, or a lifeboat to the talent in our industry.
And I think that's a that's a really important responsibility
that I that I feel as a leader today.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It's what I said earlier, it's business to you. Yeah,
and look this, see words let me let me let
me jump back to those for a moment. The reason
I began with content and commerce. I rarely hear the
word commerce not modified by the word content. Now, commerce
of any sort you drive it with content in some way.
And again, curation, you know, community, culture critically important to
(18:21):
all of us organizationally, but in you know, in our
day jobs, as I use that expression, but you know,
in the life we live.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, and I don't want I don't want to forget
your other c which I love is creativity. I mean,
especially in a world post att and looking at you know,
all the different privacy regulations that I think so many
of us are navigating. In many ways, we're going back
to the future in the media communications services sort of landscape,
and in many ways, Michael, we've been talking about creativity
(18:49):
as being the new targeting when you pair creativity with community.
You know. One of the things that was so surprising
to me when I came to Snap is like I
had the bias that hey, this is just for you know, youth,
and it's interesting when I look in a market like
the UK, you know, fifty percent of snaps audience is
actually over the age of twenty five. But we do
reach youth too in a really concentrated way. I mean,
(19:11):
we reach ninety percent of people that are thirteen to
twenty four and over seventy five percent of people thirteen
to thirty four in over twenty five countries. And what's
interesting is, you know, you continue to see youth adopt
the platform, but you continue to see you stay on
the platform as they age up. And when I think
about community, I think sometimes marketers and even maybe other competitors,
(19:35):
they think, well, hey, I can reach youth in these
other places. And what was so surprising to me, Michael,
is that, you know, if you look at just sort
of you know, the percentage of daily snapchatters that are
sixteen plus that don't use some of these other platforms,
the unduplicated reach that you find in this community. Again,
because it's a different job to be done. It's attached
(19:55):
to creativity, it's attached to ways that you communicate with
your friends. It's just very different in any other sort
of traditional social platform. You know, that power of community,
that power to have that creativity and that camera in
your pocket, that power to engage with talent and the
creators that power to find the best restaurant where Michael
(20:15):
and Patrick can have lunch in Midtown together again. I'm
blown away by the opportunity. And I think, you know
it's I love your teas and c's because for me,
the ones that stuck out really is the talent and
tech and the creativity and community.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
If we're having this conversation five years from now, other
than me having more gray hair, what do you what
do you think?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, listen, I've learned not to not to make future predictions.
And although I'm not a product person or an engineer,
I mean I think from a snap perspective, I would
just love to continue seeing us be you know, the
platform for your real friends, your real relationships, a place
where you can be your authentic self, where you can
actually experience more joy than you sperience anywhere else online.
(21:01):
And I think you know, those tools for creativity, for
self expression. Also this ability in the future to really
bridge online experiences and real life experiences one of the
things I've loved so much since I've joined her. If
you've been to a RAMS game recently at so far,
or you've been to a concert, at Barclays in New
York City. If you see the way that our AR
(21:25):
has been integrated into the production in stadiums, like during
you know, the kiss cam during a time out of
a RAMS game versus the forty nine ers, like these
opportunities to have like digital experiences with that really powerful
device in your hand, but also sharing it with fifty
thousand people in a stadium and you're experiencing something in
(21:46):
real life. You know. I think five years from now,
we're only going to see those types of opportunities become exponential,
and I think that's what's really exciting. Tech has gotten
a bad rap for being isolating, especially in the pandemic,
and really leading to more depression, leading to more things
that I think none of us want in our societies.
(22:07):
And I think the real opportunity and one of the
things I love most about being at SNAP today is
like this real power and authentic relationships, but this power
in bridging both real life physical experiences and also those
digital experiences.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Well, Patrick Harris, I'm looking forward to being on that
ride with you. I want to thank you for joining
good company, Thank you for having me. I'm Michael Casson.
Thanks for listening. To good Company.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. A special thanks
to Lena Peterson, chief Brand Officer and Managing Director of
media Link for her vision I'm Good Company, and to
Jen Sealing, vice President Marketing Communications of media Link for programming,
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