Casper Ravn-Sørensen, CEO of GoWish.
getty
“So, I heard Evan Spiegel just name-dropped your company in Snapchat’s Q4 earnings call?”
This was one of several similar texts I received just the other day.
Further below, we’ll get back to why this happened, but let’s just set the scene for what led to this event for me and my company. Since the early 2000s, businesses have followed the same digital advertising playbook: Placing their products in digital “storefronts” and “windows” toward consumers, capturing attention with striking visuals, and driving conversions through compelling yet monologues offers.
Then came Facebook and social media had its breakthrough in the late 2000s, introducing a new era of digital dialogue: Brands no longer just talked at consumers—they had to engage with them.
But the way people interact with brands has continued to evolve at an increasing pace, and in the company I’ve been running for the past five years, we’ve learned firsthand how younger generations, especially Gen Z and Gen A, respond differently to advertising on social media.
They don’t want to be “sold” something; they prefer to “buy into” matters on their own. This is a shift I explored deeper in my previous article about Gen A.
The essence is that the commercial approach to social media and the consumer groups that use it should be treated and used very differently. What we found out—and what this article is ultimately about—is how approaching each social media as its own separate channel, instead of seeing them all only as different sides to the same coin, should make you reevaluate your marketing mix and strategy.
This changed for us when we adjusted our approach, taking a leap of faith and embracing the unique nature of Snapchat.
Snapchat had always been part of our marketing mix, but we had never prioritized it. Once we refined our approach though, and tailored our format and messaging to “fit the bracket” of one of Gen A-Z’s favorite social media sites, we saw a dramatic shift by focusing our ads on three key elements: By leveraging trending products that resonated with our audience, crafting compelling hooks to capture attention and emphasizing a strong value proposition, we finally got it right and Snapchat became a key part of our growth strategy.
And as for the Evan Spiegel mention? The success was big enough that Snapchat’s founder and CEO highlighted it during their recent Q4 earnings call, confirming a 70% decrease in cost-per-install and a 3,000% increase in app installs over 12 weeks, which ultimately ended up at 4.7 million downloads through Snapchat alone in 2024.
But the point I’m trying to make is that our success on Snapchat wasn’t just about fine-tuning a campaign. It revealed something bigger: The future of digital advertising is shifting. Consumers today don’t want ads that disrupt their experience; rather, they respond to brands that feel like a natural part of the conversation. Social media isn’t one monolithic space but a collection of distinct ecosystems, each with its own behaviors, norms and expectations. What works seamlessly on Instagram may feel out of place on Snapchat, and what captures attention on TikTok might not translate to Facebook.
This is a key challenge where brands, still applying traditional media logic, stand to gain the most: Treating all social media the same is like trying to publish the same article in five completely different newspapers and expecting equal results—and I see so many companies make this mistake.
Rather than repurposing the same content across channels, it’s about studying how people behave on each platform and meeting them in that context. We learned that relevance often matters more than explanation. Especially when your product doesn’t fit neatly into a category, it helps to start with a familiar emotion or scenario—something the audience already understands—before introducing the details.
We also found that while high-production, polished content works well on some platforms (on Snapchat, it’s straightforward, personal content), something that feels like a friend sharing a story performed far better. That doesn’t mean abandoning quality, but it does mean matching the tone and tempo of the platform you’re on.
And perhaps most importantly, it means being agile. What works today may not work tomorrow. Brands that succeed are those that test early, iterate often, and treat their strategy as something adaptive, not fixed. Success won’t come from the biggest budgets but from the ability to adapt, observe and act accordingly.
Our journey on Snapchat wasn’t just a lesson in platform-specific advertising—it was a lesson on how to engage with audiences on their own turf and terms, wherever they are. In a digital world where consumers hold the power to scroll away in an instant, the brands that succeed will be those that truly understand not just where their audience is but how they want to be spoken to.
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