Snapchat inks deal with 20 local media brands in MENA
The platform is boosting its presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region after opening an office earlier this year.
The new collaborators include 7awi, Abu Dhabi Media (ADM), Al Aan TV, Al Arabiya, Discovery Inc, Dubai Media Inc (DMI), Goal.com/Perform Group, Gulf News, Hia Magazine, ITP Media Group, Kooora, Loolia, Lovin Dubai, MBC Group, Online Lifestyle Network FZLLC, Rotana Media Group, Step Group, Trend for Digital Communication, UTURN and Vice Arabia.
The 20 partners in the MENA region will be offering over 32 shows as well as four publisher stories to the platform.
The head of international content partnerships at Snapchat, Rami Saad said, “It is not entirely true that Snap is targeted only at youth but what we really see are content from a wide range of demographics, especially in Saudi Arabia. Snap has over nine million daily active users in Saudi Arabia, and one million daily active users in the UAE. In the region, Snapchat has over 12 million daily active users.
“Discover is a closed environment and we invite content providers to join and we select whom we want to work with. Building a sustainable business model is important to us. Monetisation is going to be enabled from the day one in all of the formats we are launching.”
Discover was launched globally in 2015 with 18 partners and now it has over 100 collaborators worldwide.
The Chief Executive Officer of 7awi, Anas Abbar, declare, “We have published over 600 stories and over 7,000 snaps since May last year in Layalina Discover channel. We got more than 11 million unique views but to reach that number in other platforms, it took us many years.”
To recall, Snapchat is a mobile messaging application used to share photos, videos, text, and drawings. It’s free to download the app and free to send messages using it. It has become hugely popular in a very short space of time, especially with young people.