More than 30 series from MENA brands is scheduled to launch on Snapchat in the coming months.
Snap has announced that it is working with more than 20 Middle East media companies including Dubai Media Inc., Abu Dhabi Media, Discovery and MBC to create shows on Snapchat as part of an expansion of its Discover brand. More than 30 series from MENA brands is scheduled to launch on Snapchat in the coming months.
These partnerships expand the local content already available on Snapchats Discover page, where Snapchatters in the region can see content from Al Arabiya, Sayidaty and UTURN among others.
TV networks and entertainment studios are revisiting their popular series for Snapchat, with shows across entertainment, sport and food, from Scoop with Raya from MBC to Tareq Show from Rotana Media Group; Fatafeat from Discovery as well as a Publisher Story from Vice Arabia. Content has been cut in the vertical, full screen format pioneered by Snapchat and which has since become the de facto standard for mobile. Each show averages five minutes in length, has a clear narrative, and is hyper-visual with motion graphics, split screens, quick cuts, inspired by the way Snapchatters talk to their friends.
Discover launched in January 2015 with 18 brand partners producing Publisher Stories and today, Snapchat have more than 100 globally. Local content first arrived in the region in May 2017, with seven partners, rising to nine in the same year.
At the press conference, Snap announced a few figures. Time spent watching Shows on Snapchat globally has more than tripled since the beginning of the year and in Q3 2018, 21 unique Shows in Discover reached a monthly active audience of over 10 million viewers.
The Middle East is a very engaged content market for Snap – we saw a 54% increase in time spent in Discover from April to September of this year. From the sneak peak weve had of these Shows, I have no doubt Snapchatters are going to love them, commented Rami Saad, Head of International Content Partnerships at Snap.
Saad also hosted a small panel discussion with a few of its partners, including 7awi, MBC, Discovery and Uturn.
Anas Abbar, Chief Executive Officer, 7awi, who has shows on Snap, commented: We are excited to be expanding our collaboration with Snapchat on Snapchat Discover. Our existing engagement has yielded amazing results and interests for our audience and for 7awi as a publisher. We are thrilled to replicate the success of the Layalina Discover channel and cherish our strong relationship with Snapchat. Ra2ej will focus on entertainment content and will cater to both, the male and female audience. We look forward to playing a bigger part in developing premium Arabic content for the region.
Henry Windridge, Head of Brand, Discovery Inc, added: “As Arabias first and most-loved food brand, all of us at Fatafeat are incredibly excited to join forces with Snap in the Middle East, bringing the best of Fatafeats traditional recipes, inspirational culinary content and world-class production values to the platform and its engaged community of Snapchatters across the region.”
