iWorld
Snapchat premieres new Creator Shows with Anushka Sen & Vir Das
New Delhi: Snap has announced the launch of its first local and original Indian Creator shows produced by Qyuki and featuring television actress Anushka Sen and comedian Vir Das.
Powered by relatable characters made for Snapchat’s mobile first audience, the shows will air exclusively on Snapchat Discover. They were first announced in October 2020 alongside a slate of other exclusive and Snap Original content.
In What’s On My Plate, Sen will be seen making some of her favourite dishes in the kitchen, whilst taking on a series of cooking challenges set by her ‘Food Wheel’ Snapchat Lens. The weekly series premieres 19 June with new episodes coming out every Saturday and will feature special appearances from Sen’s family and friends who sample and rate her food creations.
In Vir Das – The Most Epic Max Show, Das will take on seemingly impossible and new challenges, pushing his boundaries and trying different things. Each challenge is either ‘Epic’ or a complete ‘Fail’, but either way, he makes it a fun learning experience. The weekly series premieres 24 June with episodes coming out every Thursday and each episode will give viewers a glimpse of the real Das and a sneak peek into his life and friends.
Like all Shows on Snapchat, episodes average three to five minutes in length, are full-screen vertical and paced for mobile. Each series is available to more than 70 million viewers in India who have watched Snapchat Shows in the last year. As of March 2021, Snap’s daily active user base in India grew by over 100 per cent every quarter for the last five quarters, it said on Thursday.
“Shows on Snapchat are designed to both inform and entertain: created to reflect and celebrate the diverse voices, experiences and passions of the global community of Snapchatters. Snap’s unique original programming is locally nuanced for the Indian viewers. We’re thrilled to launch these two new Creator shows – each one a window into the lives of some of India’s most popular creators,” said head of Snap Originals, Vanessa Guthrie.
iWorld
Meta introduces new AI tools to boost discovery-to-purchase journey
From shoppable Reels to generative video, platforms get smarter at turning attention into sales.
MUMBAI: Meta is turning “scroll and stop” into “scroll, stop, and shop” and it’s using AI to make the whole journey feel almost effortless. The company has announced several new tools and enhancements designed to help brands guide people from discovery to purchase more effectively, while delivering more relevant and personalised experiences across its platforms.
Creators can now add product links more broadly on Instagram Reels, turning their content into shoppable moments. Businesses in 22 countries, including India, will soon be able to share their product catalogues with creators, opening up a new sales channel for brands and fresh monetisation opportunities for creators.
The Creator Marketplace has also been upgraded with enhanced target audience filtering, integrated with Ads Manager. This helps businesses quickly find creators who are a strong match for their goals. Campaigns using Partnership Ads deliver, on average, 19 per cent lower CPAs, 13 per cent higher click-through rates, and 71 per cent higher median brand lift.
Meta is expanding Reels Trending Ads inventory with new content categories including TV & Movies, Travel, Business, Finance & Investments. According to Meta’s analysis of 59 studies, Reels Trending Ads delivered an incremental 6.6 percentage point Ad Recall lift compared to control groups.
AI-Powered Shopping Enhancements
- Product Set Optimisation is now in testing, allowing retail media networks to promote specific products with detailed reporting. Early results show 17 per cent lower median seller cost per purchase.
- Product Showcase is being expanded so marketers can upload one image or video and let Meta’s AI automatically add relevant products as a carousel when it improves performance.
Meta is expanding its generative AI capabilities with:
- UGC-style videos featuring avatars and voiceovers
- Easier voiceover translation and text overlay translation in a single streamlined flow
- New tools to automatically turn product catalogues into dynamic video ads for Reels
Early testing of the Advantage+ creative video generation tool showed a 10 per cent increase in CTR and 8 per cent increase in CVR on average. Campaigns using catalog product video saw 20 per cent more conversions per dollar, while Reels placements with catalog product video delivered 33 per cent higher incremental conversions.
Industry voices welcomed the updates. Vikas Chawla of Social Beat called Partnership Ads a “flywheel” for authentic content that converts. Niti Kumar of Spark Foundry and Sadhvi Dhawan of Blink Digital highlighted the power of Reels Trending Ads for cultural relevance and guaranteed share of voice. Ramasish Bhowmik of Adbuffs noted that Meta’s GenAI tools are giving teams a clear competitive edge.
In a world where attention is fleeting but shopping intent can spark in seconds, Meta is betting that smarter AI will help brands turn discovery into decisions faster than ever. The message is clear: the future of advertising isn’t just about reaching people, it’s about reaching them at exactly the right moment, with exactly the right product.
