Abstract

The case discusses the rapid decrease in the user base of US-based multimedia messaging app, Snapchat after its redesign. Snapchat, developed by Snap Inc. (Snap), became highly popular for sharing temporary photo and video messaging applications. It disrupted the social media platform due to its unique features. But amidst its consecutive disappointing results, Snap realized the need to redesign the app to make it user-friendly and capable of re-disrupting the social media platform. However, the app redesign came in for a lot of criticism and people voiced their discontent on other social platforms. The unpopular redesign affected the company’s financials and led to a drop in Snap’s stock value. Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, held the redesign responsible for the company missing its revenue and user growth target. Though Snap was initially not in favor of changing its redesigned pages, it finally agreed to reverse the changes following user complaints. In May 2018, it released a redesign of its heavily criticized redesign, with the popular app more closely resembling its classic look. But the re-redesign did little to help the company regain users and the ensuing operational losses fuelled investors’ fears about Snap’s growth prospects. In its first-ever revenue guidance for the third quarter 2018, Snap forecast a deceleration in its growth rate and suggested additional sequential declines in users in the quarters ahead. Going forward, will Snap be able to turn things around?

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand disruptive marketing and disruptive marketing strategy.
• Understand the problems faced by social media companies in an increasingly competitive Environment.
• Understand how the disruptive marketing strategy of companies appeals to both consumers and brands.

Keywords

Disruption; Disruptive marketer; Platform; Disruptive marketing; Social media; Competition; Social media disruptor; Digital marketing; Product innovation; Redesign