Snap appoints new CMO ahead of the NewFronts

Snap is shaking up its marketing leadership ahead of its NewFronts presentation next month. The social media company today announced the promotion of Grace Kao to chief marketing officer, effectively replacing Colleen DeCourcy, who will serve as an advisor before departing the company later this year. Kao joined Snap five months ago as its VP of consumer and business marketing after leading Spotify’s global business marketing for nearly two years. Prior to that, she served as Instagram’s head of global business marketing for three years. Snap hasn’t had a formal CMO since April 2023, when the company’s former CMO, Kenny Mitchell, left the company to step into the same role at Levi Strauss & Co. DeCourcy, who has served as Snap’s chief creative officer since early 2022, has led the company’s marketing since Mitchell’s departure. Snap has no plans to fill the CCO position. Check out the latest NewFronts updates DeCourcy, the former Wieden+Kennedy global chief creative officer and president, spearheaded the launch of Snap’s “Less social media. More Snapchat” campaign last year, which positioned Snapchat as a safer and more positive alternative to social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. DeCourcy recruited Kao to the company’s marketing team in late 2024. “Since joining Snap in December, Grace has already demonstrated significant impact across the marketing organization and I’m excited to deepen our work together in her new role,” Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said in an announcement to Snap team members. “At the same time, we are incredibly grateful to Colleen for her contributions leading our brand work over the past three years, for her energy and creativity, and for her instrumental role in building our talented in-house creative team.” Kao led award-winning campaigns at Spotify and during her 17 years as a group account director at TBWA\Chiat\Day and Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Most recently, she helmed Spotify’s “Spreadbeats” business-to-business campaign, which took home nine awards at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—including a Grand Prix. Kao’s appointment as CMO comes on the heels of a year of revenue and user growth for Snap. The company’s revenue rose 16% in 2024 to $5.36 billion, according to Snap’s latest earnings report, and the number of users logging into Snapchat daily reached 453 million in the fourth quarter of 2024—a year-over-year increase of 39 million. Globally, Snap draws in more than 850 million monthly active users, according to the Snap spokesperson. For comparison, Instagram has roughly 2 billion monthly active users globally, while TikTok has more than 1.5 billion. Snap also spent much of the past year expanding its advertising offerings on Snapchat. In October, the company began testing two new ad placements: Sponsored Snaps, which allow brands to deliver video ads to the same inbox where users receive Snapchat messages, and Promoted Places, which enable advertisers to sponsor locations (such as their stores or restaurants) on the app’s Snap Map. It’s also rolled out several new generative AI tools for advertisers, such as a tool that lets brands create AR Snapchat Lenses using generative AI. The number of active advertisers on Snapchat “more than doubled” in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to the year-earlier period, Spiegel announced in Snap’s latest earnings report. Snap also recently announced the promotion of Ajit Mohan, who previously served for two years as the company’s president of the Asia-Pacific region, to chief business officer. One of Mohan’s key responsibilities in his new role is growing Snap’s advertising business globally, according to the company.

Snap appoints new CMO ahead of the NewFronts

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