Snap VP of Marketing to Leave as Company Seeks New Strategy to Reignite Growth
*By Alex Heath*
Snap’s Vice President of Marketing, Steve LaBella, is leaving the company, Cheddar has learned.
A former marketing executive at Mattel, LaBella joined Snap ($SNAP) in May 2016 and oversaw the company’s marketing efforts, including Snapchat’s first national TV campaign earlier this year. He announced to employees that he is leaving Snap last week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A Snap spokesperson confirmed LaBella's departure to Cheddar on Friday and said he would stay through the end of November.
“Steve has been a valuable member of our team, building our consumer marketing department and continually finding new ways to surprise and inspire the Snapchat community," Snap said in a statement. "We are grateful for all of his hard work and many contributions and wish him the very best.”
LaBella is the latest in a long string of executive departures from Snap since the company’s public offering in early 2017. Senior executives who have either left or announced their intention to leave since the IPO include the Chief Strategy Officer, Senior VP of Engineering, Chief Financial Officer, VP of Product, VP of Sales, General Counsel, Chief Security Officer, VP of Hardware, and VP of Communications.
In a 15-page memo to employees that was [first published by Cheddar on Thursday](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company-memo-on-2019-strategic-goals-and-profitability), Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that one of the company’s goals is to change “our marketing and communications around Snapchat” and better educate advertisers about how to use the app.
“In the past, we've tried to make presentations or videos to explain Snapchat to advertisers; this year we are going to spend less time explaining and more time helping advertisers learn by using our product,” Spiegel wrote. “This challenge extends to anyone at Snap that interfaces with our partners, the media, or Wall Street. Rather than trying to explain everything, let's help people use the product themselves.”
Snap’s controversial redesign led to its first-ever decline in daily active users in the second quarter, and the stock is trading at all-time lows. In his memo to employees, Spiegel said that the company would aim to achieve full-year profitability in 2019, despite it posting a net loss of $353.31 million last quarter.
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