Trump’s debate day Snapchat filter viewed 80 million times
Donald Trump may not have won the debate last Monday but he got his spin on the big event in front of 25 million Snapchat users, according to people familiar with the ad buy.
Trump became the first candidate to buy a so-called national geofilter, which allows the mostly millennial user base of the popular messaging and news app to layer atop Trump’s ads onto their posts about his showdown with Hillary Clinton.
The Trump filters — one of which teased the debate as “Donald J. Trump vs. Crooked Hillary” — totaled nearly 80 million views, according to people familiar with the ad.
It’s not clear exactly how much Trump paid, but one person familiar with the buy said it was in the six-figures and two said it was less than $500,000.
The filter Trump promoted changed throughout the day, with the initial “Crooked Hillary” teaser becoming an image of Trump parachuting from “Trump Force One” onto the stage and then “TRUMP WINS BIG LEAGUE” after the debate was over.
Clinton previously bought so-called geofilters to target Snapchat users who attended the Republican National Convention in Cleveland over the summer.