Snapchat adds Philly’s Slyce to ‘Creative Partner’ program

Snap Inc. rolled out a list of 14 new “Snapchat Creative Partners” on Thursday. Among them was one Philly startup: Slyce.

It all started with an exploration: What if people could save a coupon straight from Snapchat? As luck would have it Slyce’s Coupon Author platform — used by retailers like The Children’s Place and Bed Bath & Beyond — can do just that.

An initial Snapchat campaign for clothing retailer Express proved successful, said Slyce CEO Ted Mann. It offered a $25 discount on purchases over $100.

Slyce is now an official @Snapchat partner for coupons. Our first campaign, for Express, was a huge success! https://t.co/TYwi3oRZvR

— Partium (@partiumio) September 25, 2017

Being part of the creative partners list doesn’t yield any immediate monetary gains, said Mann, but it’s a great way to channel opportunities for companies to use their software. It’s also exposing the tech to a massive audience, he said.

Alongside Slyce, another couponing app called PopWallet was included in the partner roster, signaling a broader interest from Snapchat on making coupon ad sales part of its pitch. According to Wharton professor Raghuram Iyengar, who’s done his research on the social coupon model, it’s an experiment aimed at monetizing Snapchat’s network data.

“Thanks to the data they have on customers, Snapchat could go one step ahead and help companies advertising on Snapchat figure out who are the right people to target,” Iyengar said. “They could track who could become a ‘brand ambassador.'”

Slyce, which transitioned from being a public company to a private one in January of this year, is headquartered in Center City. Out of the company’s 50 or so employees, about half are in the U.S., and most are in Philly. The company still has an office in Nova Scotia, home to Slyce’s former headquarters prior to its 2015 acquisition of the Philly-founded SnipSnap.

“So far that’s going really well and investors are happy,” Mann said of the transition to being a private company, which was possible thanks to an investment from a Washington, D.C., private equity firm called Anzu Partners. “We’re going really fast, signing on several partners every month.”