Mass. firm puts Snap in ad campaigns
When “The Martha Stewart Show” wanted to promote its September premiere on the Hallmark Channel, it used a Watertown firm’s technology to create an “ultimate fan” Facebook sweepstakes to give away a trip to the live taping. Pangea Media’s SnapApp marketing software allows companies and brands to create online quizzes, polls, personality tests, sweepstakes and contests to attract and interact with customers.
“SnapApp helps our customers ... turn monologues into dialogues and use that dialogue to drive marketing events,” founder and CEO Seth Lieberman said. “One of the great things about our technology platform is that it can work almost anywhere — it works on social media like Facebook and Twitter, it works on any Web page, it works on mobile, and it even works on ad units.”
Pangea launched the SnapApp in February. Customers including Clorox, Comcast, NBC, MTV, National Public Radio and Timex have used it to build e-mail lists, generate leads, acquire Facebook “Likes” and Twitter followers, and drive sales, registrations and subscriptions.
The five-year-old online advertising and marketing company started out doing quizzes and sweepstakes on its own network of 50 Web sites — including Quibblo .com — to attract page-views and generate ad revenue to build what Lieberman says is likely the largest quiz company on the Web.
“We built SnapApp ... to capture our best practices and most successful technologies into a self-serve platform that publishers, brands and agencies can use,” Lieberman said. “SnapApp is the future of everything we will do.” Dorado Tacos & Semitas used SnapApp for a daily trivia question for customers who scan quick-response codes on the Brookline restaurant’s tables. Magic Beans, a baby gear and toy chain with stores in Brookline, Cambridge, Hingham and Wellesley, ran a “31 Days of Giveaways” promotion on Facebook and its Web site to collect customer leads.
Pangea Media will showcase SnapApp at the Web Innovators Group meeting tomorrow in Cambridge.
“It’s always good to get our message out and help people understand how they can be more effective and efficient in getting their own message online,” Lieberman said. “There’s always that opportunity to generate new customers and attract additional capital if we need it.”
The 18-employee company raised $1 million in a 2007 angel round with family and friends.
“That’s all we’ve needed to date,” Lieberman said. “We were profitable for a long time, and now we’re using a lot of our cash to grow the SnapApp product. We’re investing heavily in sales and marketing as well as development. The opportunity for us is enormous.”