Inside Snapchat’s Chennai Creator Connect: How the platform is winning Gen-Z India

The excitement is palpable at Chennai’s Snapchat Creator Connect. With the place teeming with Gen-Z, the buzz is on how content and social media trends can shape societal narratives.

The numbers tell a story: 90 percent of their user base in India is between 13 and 34. At 250 million active users currently, Snapchat’s focus on visual storytelling, short videos and AR is clearly targeted at the young Indian. And now, with viral sensation, musician Asal Kolaar, they hope to strengthen their connect with regional players and culture.

In the middle of all this action is Saket Jha Saurabh, Director and Head of AR & Content Partnerships, Snap Inc. “The south – particularly Tamil Nadu – has great history, with music, movies and culture. We feel there is a huge opportunity, and this is the beginning of a long journey with creators.”

Chennai’s Snapchat Creator Connect
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

That journey filled with pictures, because, as Saket puts it, “the Gen-Z generation thinks in visuals.” “They send a photo of a dish to communicate that they have arrived at a place,” he explains, adding that 76 percent of users in Chennai use AR lenses in the app. “We call it lenses, not filters. We did a AR lens featuring a 70s look that was a huge hit..”

How does the increased use and misuse of Artificial Intellience (AI) play out in all this? “AI is fused into our product. We equip the user with AI-led benefits, to ease content creation and personalise it for them. However, if people misuse it to create deepfakes, we will take action against them and pull down their account,” he says.

Despite the existence of multiple chat and social media platforms, Snapchat thrives because it is relaxed, he says. “Here, creators tend to do well if they are just being themselves. Most other platforms are about being on-stage and choosing the best version of yourself. Here, we encourage people to put the real you out there.”