Claiborne Invests in the (Ephemeral) Future

The first question you might have upon reading this story is “What exactly is a 'Snapchat geofilter'?”

The second would probably be, “Why is a Kentucky farm with a legacy that extends back more than a century investing in a marketing idea so ephemeral that its messages are designed to disappear seconds after they are viewed?”

Both are valid points. Allison Bishop, the daughter of Seth Hancock, who is helping to guide the family's Claiborne Farm into the next generation as its communications coordinator, admitted that the concept of social media might have been a hard sell to her forefathers.

“It certainly would have been difficult to explain to them,” the 2014 Centre College graduate said with a laugh in a Thursday phone interview. “But with Walker, my brother, as president now, we're just trying to do as much as we can to draw in new fans to Claiborne, especially the younger generation. There are a lot of initiatives going on in the sport right now, and we're just trying to do whatever we can to attract a younger audience.”

Snapchat, which currently boasts 100 million daily users, is a smartphone messaging app that is all the rage right now among teens and 20-somethings. It allows users to send videos and pictures, both of which will self-destruct moments after a recipient views them. The “here now–gone in 10 seconds” nature of this sort of messaging is being embraced as a way to underscore the on-the-go immediacy of users' lives.

Think of the “filter” part of it as a digital frame for those pictures–it acts as a badge of authenticity that surrounds the image. And in the case of “geo” filters, they can only be applied to the photo or video if a user's smartphone is within a specific geographic location. Users pay nothing for the service. But for a fee that some businesses are willing to pay to Snapchat–sports teams, bars/clubs, and restaurants are prime examples–such entities can give users the option of adding what is essentially a visual product placement to their images; a form of implicit advertising that shouts out to friends “I really am here!”

Bishop came up with the idea earlier this spring after using geofiltering on her own personal Snapchat account. She asked Claiborne's marketing agency if it could implement the feature for the farm's property, and Patrick Mahan, the founder and chief executive officer of Studio 34 Productions, was quickly able to establish a Snapchat “geofence.” He told TDN he believes Claiborne is the first breeding or racing entity in Kentucky to use the technology.

So how does it work?

From a user's perspective, you might take the Claiborne Farm tour and shoot a selfie alongside the GI Kentucky Derby-winning stallion Orb (Malibu Moon). Or you might pay your respects at the legendary Secretariat's final resting place on the property and photograph that. Moments later, it would only take a few taps on your smartphone to surround those photos with the Claiborne filter, which incorporates a version of the farm's logo that Studio 34 designed specifically for the Snapchat app.

“Allison was the one who came to us,” Mahan said. “We're a young agency and we like to think that we're progressive with digital technologies, but we've always been a little bit reserved with Claiborne because they have the reputation of being so conservative. So to see them, after a hundred-plus-year tradition, sort of step outside of that box and embrace this new technology, it shows how progressive the new generation of the Hancock family is, wanting to be at the forefront of cool ways of getting their message across.”

Bishop said she was at Keeneland on opening weekend and was mildly surprised to see that the track doesn't have its own geofiltering system in place–yet.

She was quick to add though, that like numerous other Kentucky racing and breeding entities, the Claiborne team needs to be cognizant about balancing valued traditions with new concepts.

“We know there's a line that we don't want to cross,” Bishop said. “But we felt like doing a Snapchat geofilter was tasteful yet attractive enough to catch the eye of the younger audience.”

Neither Bishop nor Mahan wanted to give a ballpark figure of what the Snapchat initiative costs, although they both indicated pricing is based on the amount of square footage an entity wants to include in its geographic area.

Mahan said it would have cost too much for Claiborne to include the entire sprawling farm within the boundary that displays the geofilter option to users, and it wouldn't have been cost-effective anyway because guests don't venture way out into Claiborne's pastures. So they settled on just laying claim to the portions of the property where visitors are likely to be shooting photographs.

Mahan added that it's too early to tell how much bang Claiborne is getting for its bucks on this, because he has yet to delve into Snapchat's statistical metrics that show how many guests utilize the geofilter. The feature has been active for about two weeks.

“We've really been taking a look at our visitor experience recently,” Bishop said. “We have comment cards when people come to visit, and we've just been really considering all the suggestions that they throw out, and hopefully we'll be able to come up with more fun ideas like this that create a better visitor experience in the future.”