Especially for this year, Snapchat isn’t the one to shy away from highlighting its top-performers. Snap has just shared a new overview of its top AR tools and campaigns in its ‘Lens Of The Year’ report. The report is meant to emphasize the increasing value of AR on multiple fronts.
Snap explains:
“With over 6 billion plays per day on average, Lenses offer a unique window into the year’s cultural moments, achievements in AR innovation, and trends that made a lasting impact. Join us as we celebrate our community and the 2021 Lenses that revolutionized the way Snapchatters create, explore, learn, and play.”
The report alludes to a couple of interesting perspectives on broader web trends, while also highlighting how said trends can be incorporated into AR applications. It could be worth taking note of top trends, as AR continuously grows to be a bigger part of digital advertising.
Snappin’!
First off, among the top AR trends of the year, ‘Little Bernie’, ‘Squid Game’, and ‘3D Cartoon’ were the most popular Lenses. Especially if you’re an avid Snapchatter, you would have likely encountered these multiple times throughout the year, which would make sense given that each of these three have been viewed billions of times.
Of the three, two are connected to broader web trends, meaning that the influence driving their engagement goes beyond the boundaries of Snapchat. This makes them harder to adopt as brand promotional tools, but they do provide a certain amount of insight as to what Snapchatters are likely to engage with. They’re inspirational material at the very least, potentially providing you with an idea about how you can make your own viral AR campaigns.
Other popular Lenses include the ‘Smile’ Lens, ‘Photo Crop’, and ‘Fire Glasses’, which, not surprisingly, provide effects exactly as their names suggest.
Snapchat also notes the top music-inspired Lenses, with more than 1.2 billion audio-enabled Snaps created in 2021. In line with this, Snapchat had been expanding its audio options throughout the year, seemingly out to align with TikTok-lead usage. A strategic move by Snap was to partner up so that it could deliver a more immersive audio experience.
With their own dedicated Lenses, the top musicians on the app include The Notorious B.I.G, J Balvin, and Olivia Rodrigo.
Of course, Snap won’t leave out some key brand uses for AR. With eCommerce set to be the next big shift, Snapchat was keen to advance its own set of tools in order to facilitate better online shopping – Snapchat has been evolving its set of AR Try-On tools, featuring virtual showcases from some big-name brands. Snapchat was also able to acquire digital sizing company FitAnalytics back in March, enabling it to provide more accurate matches for clothing and apparel.
Snap has recognized Prada, Fartech, and Zenni as the top three AR innovators of the year, with more AR clothing applications scheduled to come over time.
The Wrap
It’s rather interesting to consider the evolution of AR and where it sits exactly with regards to broader digital engagement. AR has definitely influenced the present course of certain applications and processes, and will no doubt only continue to do so with the passing of time and with its own growth and development. In fact, with its much-anticipated AR Spectacles set to release within the next 24 months, AR could very well be a very significant consideration, for brands and industries alike.
Snapchat managed to dominate the AR space, even amidst the presence of tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple, all of which Snapchat has partnerships with by the way.If it does manage to rollout its spectacles within the intended time period, then adoption is only likely to further increase the acceleration at which AR is integrated into the various systems of interaction. Option are definitely increasing.
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