Tag: Spectacles

Brawny Uses Snap Spectacles To Capture Kids’ POV For Mother’s Day Ad

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Paper towel brand Brawny found a unique usage of Snap Spectacles for this year’s Mother’s Day campaign. The company worked with ad agency Cutwater to create a 60-second commercial titled “Once a Mother, Always a Giant” that uses footage shot by putting the camera-embedded camera on kids to capture their point of view. The result is a heartwarming montage of mothers looking like “giants” from the kids’ perspective.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time a brand has used Snap Spectacles to generate unique video content for marketing purposes. Both Marriott and Hyatt have been leveraging Spectacles to create authentic video content from their properties around the world. While Snap’s first quarterly report as a public company released on Wednesday doesn’t exactly paint a rosy perspective for the company, CEO Evan Spiegel says he’s not bothered with Facebook’s aggressive imitation of Snapchat features while re-stressing the company’s camera-first strategy. Regardless of which company will prevail in the race to make the camera the first mass platform for augmented reality, brands need to start exploring using new tools to spice up their campaigns.

 

Source: Marketing Dive

Image courtesy of Brawny’s YouTube

Marriott Hands Influencers Snapchat Spectacles To Create Authentic Branded Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Marriott is the latest brand to leverage Snapchat’s video-recording Spectacles sunglasses to produce branded content for social campaigns. The hotel chain gave four social influencers a pair of Spectacles, who will use it to create 10-second vertical video clips for its Rewards loyalty program that will run as ads on Snapchat. The influencers will take over the brand’s Snapchat account about once a month to share their one-week stays at Marriott properties in Berlin, New York, Dubai, and Seoul, leveraging their social stardom to attract some followers for the brand. The campaign is scheduled to run from now through June.

What Brands Need To Do
Snapchat only started selling Spectacles last November, and despite its limited availability, it has been quickly adopted by brand marketers to create authentic, off-the-cuff short videos that are perfect for online and social campaigns. Previously, Hyatt also handed out some Spectacles to some of its employees to share their daily activities at Hyatt properties around the world. This Marriott campaign takes it one step further by mixing in social influencers and paid ads to attract a wider audience on Snapchat.

Perhaps more intriguingly, Snapchat has been testing some AR-enabled filters that may be activated by Spectacles, which would allow brands to add digital activations to their physical marketing materials such as billboards and posters. As Snap continues to bring augmented reality technology to the mass market with its camera-centric products, brands will need to start to think about how AR may add value to their products, services, and marketing efforts.

 

Source: AdWeek

 

How Hyatt Leverages Snapchat Spectacles For Branded Content From Employee POVs

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Hyatt becomes the latest brand to embrace Spectacles, the camera-equipped connected sunglasses from Snap Inc., for creating marketing content. As part of its global campaign “World of Hyatt,” the international hotel chain has given away eight pairs of Spectacles to employees at different hotel locations around the world to produce branded video content from their unique POVs. The content they produce will be shared internally as well on Hyatt’s social media channels selectively.

What Brands Need To Do
Previously, Toyota and L’Oreal have also tapped Spectacles to produce branded content. Hyatt’s approach differs from those two brands, which both handed the Spectacles over to social influencers at their respective events, in that it has a broader, international perspective and focuses on capturing the normal, day-to-day happenings at Hyatt properties around the world. Spectacles are great at capturing the kind of candid, off-the-cuff moments, in a circular format that is especially suited for Snapchat but can also be posted to other social channels. Brands wishing to add more authenticity to their branded content and enrich their Snapchat video content should consider using Spectacles.  

Beyond content creation, the popularization of Spectacles also signals that we are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of the primary input sources of our digital life. Beyond Snapchat, Mastercard is now allowing app users in Europe to authenticate their payments with a selfie, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently launched a digital campaign that uses facial recognition technology to create personalized travel recommendations and offer tailored travel packages. As these examples indicate, the surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will need to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer behaviors.

 

Source: Business Wire

Header image courtesy of Hyatt’s YouTube

Snapchat Spectacles Now Widely Available Via Online Shop

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
After several months of using pop-up vending machines to sell its first hardware product, Snap Inc. has made its camera-integrated sunglasses Spectacles widely available for purchase via Spectacle.com. All three colors are available for $130 a pair – keeping with the retail pricing of the pop-up vending machines – with an estimated delivery time of 2 to 4 weeks. Snap also says the elusive vending machines will return in a series new locations after a brief break.

What Brands Need To Do
In its filing for IPO, Snap indicated its intention to broaden the roll-out of Spectacles. Making it available via a dedicated ecommerce site is certainly a big step in that direction. Spectacles presents an interesting new tool for brands to create Snapchat-native video content, which brands such as Toyota and L’Oreal have started doing as part of their social influencer strategies. More brands need to align their branded content production with the ongoing trend towards mobile-native, camera-first media creation and consumption habits. When the consumers are just as likely to point their camera at things they find interesting and take a video of it to share on social channels, brands need to find an authentic way to take advantage of this trend to generate share-worthy content and engage with selfie-happy customers.

If you have yet to experience the magic that is Snapchat Spectacles, the Lab has a couple of pairs that you can try on yourself to gain a hands-on understanding of the great “un-bundling” happening in the mobile space.

 

Source: AdWeek

Snap Inc. Starts Selling Spectacles With Pop-Up “Snapbots”

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snap Inc. has started rolling out its first hardware product Spectacles, a pair of camera-equipped sunglasses that automatically syncs videos with your Snapchat, in an intriguing fashion. The company will be rolling out Snapbot, an interactive vending machine painted in its signature bright yellow, around the country, starting today with one on Venice Beach near its L.A. headquarter. The Snapbot features a large eye-shaped display and can recognize customers approaching thanks to its front-facing camera. The locations of the Snapbots will change on a daily basis and fans can visit spectacles.com to discover where the Snapbots will appear next.

Why Brands Should Care
Snap Inc. is smart to choose this intriguing way to roll out Spectacles, which drives fan enthusiasm and engagement with elements of surprise and limited-time urgency. But perhaps more importantly, the arrival of Spectacles signals that we are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of our primary input sources of our digital interactions. Beyond Snapchat, Mastercard is now allowing app users in Europe to authenticate their payments with a selfie, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently launched a digital campaign that uses facial recognition technology to create personalized travel recommendations and offer tailored travel packages. As these examples indicate, the surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will have to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer digital habits and stay connected with their audiences.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image courtesy of Spectacles’ YouTube