Snapchat bets it all on Gen Z, but can advertisers afford to do the same?

New Delhi: If there is one thing Snapchat wants Indian advertisers to know, it’s that Gen Z is its currency, its USP, and its entire story rolled into one. 

Every number the platform shares, every format it flaunts, and every study it waves around the public domain (except actual hard numbers such as revenue, campaign ticket size, and daily active users) comes back to the same point. 

On paper, the numbers look solid. 25 crore monthly active users in India is no small feat, and having nine out of ten daily users in the Gen Z category is the kind of statistic most platforms can only carve out with targeting filters. Snapchat gets it baked in. 

But here’s the rub. While youth dominance is the brag, it’s also the blind spot. In a market as varied as India, where cars, mutual funds and household durables still pay the biggest ad cheques, can a youth-only pitch really pull in the breadth of budgets Snap wants? Snapchat thinks it will. 

From likes to seconds

In an exclusive conversation with BestMediaInfo.com, Saket Jha Saurabh, Director and Head of Content and AR Partnerships at Snapchat India, said, “The time has now come for brands to understand that just large numbers do not equal large consumer engagement. You have to shift your game; you must understand what Gen Z wants. 

Saurabh explained that Snapchat in India is navigating by focusing on the fundamental trends Gen Z cares deeply about: visual messaging, valuing trends more than brands, and, crucially, creators. “Creators, in my view, are the new search,” he said. 

For Snap, the sell is no longer about likes or follower counts. It is about attention. “Attention has been missing as we all went chasing large numbers,” Saurabh said. 

In Snap’s world, an eight-second play with an AR lens is worth more than a thousand passive views. To drive the point home, the company has partnered with Lumen and GroupM to promote attention as the metric that really matters.

AR is the hook

Augmented reality is the star attraction in this attention economy. As Saurabh stated, eight out of ten Indian users play with AR lenses every day. A teenager can virtually wear a sneaker, test a lipstick shade or point a camera at a product before buying it.

Zooming in, Saurabh said, “You’ve spent eight or ten seconds actively engaging with a product in AR, and then compare that consumer experience to a passive, double-tapped heart. That is attention. That is why AR and attention are intrinsically linked.” 

“My absolute conviction is that AR is redefining what engagement should mean to marketers. Smart marketers know it’s not just about the views on your video; it’s about whether the consumer understood your product,” he added. 

The pitch to marketers is obvious. It offers interactive trials at scale without the cost of a physical demo. But AR is also the proof Snap uses to show that attention is being captured. The medium drives the metric, and the metric validates the medium. 

Saurabh underscored the necessity for marketers to pivot their strategy based on platform behaviour. The company reported that 80% of its 25 crore monthly active user base utilises AR Lenses every single day, a figure that allows for a staggering estimation of daily AR engagements.

He asserted that for any brand manager focused on engaging the Gen Z audience on their platform, deploying Lenses is mandatory. 

The creator keeps the machine running

The other engine of Snap’s India story is its creator network. Unlike Instagram’s polished influencers, Snap Stars thrive on raw, chatty storytelling. But freedom comes with rules. Creators are expected to post 10 to 15 snaps a day, open strong and keep stories long enough for ads to run. Miss the rhythm, and the algorithm looks away.

While this ensures a constant stream of content for young audiences, it pushes creators into high-frequency posting that prioritises quantity over quality. For advertisers, it raises the risk of associating with content designed for algorithmic survival rather than authentic engagement. 

Brands have to build for Snap

Snapchat doesn’t just pitch itself as another social platform. It insists it is “camera-first.” “The ad experience is integrated into how users create, not just how they consume,” Saurabh said. 

It’s a neat distinction, but also a convenient one. If Snapchat won’t fit into the traditional buckets of video or display, media planners have to either carve out a fresh budget line or skip it. Clever positioning for Snap, but an extra headache for agencies already slicing budgets thinner across platforms.

“Our consistent recommendation to advertisers is this: Do not simply port creative assets developed for other channels onto this platform. That approach is ineffective. It is essential to understand the nuances inherent to each platform. What we observe performing exceptionally well on Snapchat is comprehensive, multi-format storytelling,” Saurabh told BestMediaInfo.com.  

Glitter or gamble? 

By making Gen Z both the proof and the prize, Snap positions itself as the future and dares brands to argue. The strategy is bold, but India’s ad economy is stubbornly broad-based. Snap’s youth-first pitch is as daring as it is divisive. 

For brands, it’s a choice: chase the glitter of engagement with a new-age lens or stick to the tried-and-tested playbook. Either way, Snapchat is daring India’s marketers to rethink what winning attention really looks like.