A quick guide to social AR filters.

Bringing experiences to life digitally has never been so important. At Genero, we’ve seen a sharp increase in Augmented Reality (AR) activations and clients exploring opportunities with social filters. Yet, many marketers still believe using AR filters will be too technically complex or expensive and don’t consider it as a viable option for their brand.

The reality is that because of the seamless integration of AR and social media, businesses of all sizes and types can take advantage of this technology and a simple idea can garner significant engagement. 

Our global creative network is filled with experts skilled in 2D/3D modelling, UI art design and programming. From ideation through to development and deployment, our community can help brands create unique AR experiences, Instagram & Facebook filters, Snapchat lenses and TikTok effects designed to engage consumers in a memorable way. 

There’s a wide range of uses for filters – from those that highlight charitable causes, those that play off cultural trends,  to tactile Direct Response (DR) driven filters such as trying on sunglasses or make-up tutorials which link through to e-commerce sites.

Other filters are just there to be enjoyed, placing wild and wonderful 3D models into real-world environments, changing user’s faces with quirky additions and entertaining them with all kinds of games filled with hidden easter eggs. What’s clear is that AR is helping to galvanize deeper connections between brands and customers who like and are considering their products.

Here are five key filter categories that you can explore, and examples of each produced by our  creative network:

People Effects

Simple people effect: Fever is an event discovery app which helps people to make the most of their cities across the US and Europe. They wanted to create an Alice in Wonderland inspired face filter to generate awareness of a global experience they were running in several cities – the Mad Hatter Gin & Tea Party.  This effect offers the user a choice of silly headwear and face decorations, driving them to the landing page for the event in their city.

Advanced people effect: For Yoox, an online fashion retailer, we developed a filter using a combination of face tracking and background segmentation. The effect maps multiple sunglasses and hats to the user’s face and transports them into police line ups from various eras. The user can bump their head to change the prop and swipe to cycle through the environments.

Multi-product people effect: When famed London make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury was launching her products into the luxury beauty retailer Space NK, one of our creators came up with the idea of developing a step-by-step makeup tutorial, with products animating around the user before highlighting the part of the face the product should be applied to. It was a great way to let people engage with new products and visualize new make-up looks.

Game Effects

Ford came to us looking for an idea for a fun and interactive game filter as part of a broader campaign to launch and drive awareness of new Ford models. The user jumps into one of three cars and must catch everyday items like clocks to keep the timer going once the game has started. There are three switchable environments to reflect the different car models and easter eggs triggered by raising your eyebrows.

World Effects

For Conforama, a home furnishing retail chain, we delivered an AR filter that allowed users to virtually visualise a piece of furniture in their house – all from the comfort of their couch.

In the lead up to Ramadan, we partnered with Facebook and the Egyptian Food Bank to create a fun AR recipe filter that adjusted the volume of ingredients needed to match the number of guests you were preparing your Ramadan feast for. A set of different recipes were published through the filter each week for the duration of the holiday season. For extra fun, we also created a face filter for this campaign, which allowed people to play around and share with family and friends.

Do you have a great filter idea that you need brought to life, or perhaps you’d like our creative network to provide some original concepts that will work well for your brand? Whether you’re testing the waters, extending an existing campaign or experienced with AR already – get in touch with your local Genero team to learn how we can help.

Content created by:

• Yoox, SpaceNK, Conforama, Egyptian Food Bank – Thomas Bourret at Simone.
• The Mad Hatter Gin & Tea Party, Ford – David Pripas.