Pornography on Snapchat testing advertisers' tolerance for risk

New York

ONE of the most powerful advertising-buying firms has been warning its clients about the risks of their corporate marketing inadvertently showing up next to pornography on Snapchat. GroupM, which oversees billions of digital-advertising dollars as the media investing arm of the ad giant WPP, recently sent clients a memo about their ads possibly running before or after "explicit adult content" on Snapchat's Stories feature, if a user chooses to follow such accounts on the app. Stories are a collection of videos and images uploaded by users that disappear after 24 hours.

GroupM sent the memo after hearing from an advertiser that was distressed about its ad's placement either before or after a pornographic image, said Rob Norman, the firm's chief digital officer. While the ads do not appear on the same screen as the explicit images, Mr Norman said that GroupM has been advising clients concerned about the issue to stick to Snapchat's curated news service, Discover, or its filters and selfie lenses.