Matt McGowan
General Manager, Canada, Snap Inc.
Shane Cameron
Chief Strategy Officer, Omnicom Media Group
As a leader in augmented reality, Snap Inc. helps supercharge connection and experiences for Snapchatters.
Self-expression, connection, learning about the world, and having fun — this is what social media is supposed to be all about. While some social media platforms have started to feel like a rat race — with users either getting caught scrolling feeds endlessly or desperately trying to game the algorithm to get more likes — Snapchat has remained true to its essence, connecting friends and family. The app was designed to be an antidote to social media. Snapchat is different.
“Snapchat opens to the camera, instead of a content feed, to encourage creativity instead of passive consumption,” says Matt McGowan, General Manager, Canada at Snap Inc. “You’re literally looking at the world. And then we can enhance it by overlaying computing. Whether through AR face Lenses or an impromptu branded experience at the local coffee shop, it can improve your day.”
Supercharging connection and experiences
The enhancements that McGowan mentions are thanks to augmented reality (AR), which is supercharging connection and experiences on Snapchat.
“A main use case for AR is happiness,” says McGowan. “When you fire up a face Lens or throw your Bitmoji dancing on top of your car, you smile.” But besides being a playful tool for self-expression, Snapchat’s AR technology has also become utilitarian, McGowan notes, transforming how users experience the world and how businesses grow — including how we learn, shop, and even experience shared live events. Snapchat has differentiated itself by using AR for collaborations with entertainment companies (a great example was an AR Lens in partnership with Paramount Pictures to promote Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, allowing users to transform their cars into characters like Bumblebee), creating a virtual showroom for Jeep, providing CPR education with the Canadian Red Cross, providing sports fans enhanced experiences at live events, enabling consumers to try on clothing before purchasing, and more.
Empowering creators and advertisers
Because AR has the power to transform the consumer journey, brands and creators of all kinds have been tapping into AR to engage, surprise, delight, inform, and entertain their core audiences. Having invested so heavily in its AR capabilities, Snapchat offers the perfect launch pad.
“Snapchat has two types of creators: content creators who create content and connect with audiences on our app, and AR creators who use our Lens Studio software to build AR Lenses,” says McGowan. Both “Snap Stars” (public figures who share entertaining content) and advertisers are empowered to create exciting new experiences on Snapchat.
AI can make AR more powerful, more interesting, and more engaging.
And the audience waiting to be entertained is vast. Snapchat has a growing community of over 414 million daily active users (on average, 300 million Snapchatters engage with AR every day) and over 800 million monthly active users, globally. The app reaches over 90 per cent of 13- to 24-year-olds in over 20 countries, including Canada.
Delivering impressive impact
The benefits for advertisers in particular are well-documented. “Across our group of agencies, we have evidence that AR experiences enhance perception and affinity when used as part of a campaign,” says Shane Cameron, Chief Strategy Officer at Omnicom Media Group. “In most cases, having a utility that helps someone view or interact with a brand in a way that’s either more tangible or provides entertainment value is what helps an effort make an impact.”
Cameron cites the Snapchat AR Lenses that were part of an integrated multi-platform media campaign for the launch of the ROM’s Great Whales: Up Close and Personal as a favourite example. It demonstrates perfectly how AR can change how we view and interact with the real world, and the impressive impact it can have.
“We can now crank our ambition wide open and create experiences that are impossible not to notice and that can have way more of a brand’s core points of differentiation represented,” says Cameron. “We can now make experiences people move through instead of just scroll through.”
Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in supercharging AR by unlocking limitations and enhancing experiences. While AI has long powered Snapchat — helping deliver a personalized experience — it’s now helping to create even more sophisticated and advanced AR experiences.
“AI can make AR more powerful, more interesting, and more engaging,” says McGowan. “And AI is embedded in pretty much everything we do.”
Learn more about how brands and creators are using Snap’s AR technology to supercharge content and experiences at ar.snap.com.
