Brands Celebrate the Holidays With AR Snapchat Lenses

Ahead of the holiday season, brands have begun releasing festive augmented reality Lenses on the Snapchat platform. Here are some of the experiences available to users.

To start, apparel company Carhartt released three AR Lenses for the holiday season. The Carhartt Santa Lens is a gamified experience that places a white beard and Carhartt beanie on the person’s head and challenges them to drop as many presents onto houses as they can in a limited amount of time.

The Detroit Store Lens, meanwhile, places a Carhartt beanie on the person’s head and allows them to virtually step inside a festive recreation of the brand’s Detroit flagship to browse products. People can tap a button to navigate to Carhartt’s website and make a purchase. Similarly, the Shop Detroit Store Lens allows people to browse a selection of Carhartt products and tap to navigate to Carhartt’s website.

“After the success seen last holiday, we wanted to expand our approach in providing an omnichannel experience that leaned heavily into augmented reality and shoppable commerce,” said Katelyn Aubuchon, director of brand marketing at Carhartt. “We hope that playing Santa and dropping Carhartt gifts or stepping into our iconic Detroit store just might feel like a fun brand experience and not just another holiday ad.”

Elsewhere, Amazon launched a Woo Sled Lens that asks people to yell “woo” to power a sled as it glides down a snowy hill. People can tilt their head to steer the sled in order to collect products like Amazon packages and laptops.

The Purina Beggin’ Holiday Spirit Lens dresses users up like the Beggin’ brand mascot, Hamlet, and asks them to sing along to Beggin’s holiday jingle. When using the rear-facing camera, the Lens lets users view a virtual store where they can browse the band’s holiday merchandise and other products.

Tim Hortons’ Holiday Smile Cookie Lens challenges people to tilt their head to catch cookies in a bag as they fall from the top of the screen while watching out for obstacles like ornaments and wreaths. When shoppers purchase a Holiday Smile Cookie at a Tim Hortons location from Nov. 13-19, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to local communities across Canada.

Finally, Sally Hansen created a Miracle Gel Holiday Lens that allows people to virtually try on festive nail polish colors in AR. When using the selfie camera, the Lens allows people to take a photo or video as gingerbread men and snowflakes fall from the top of the screen.

“We’re thrilled to see brands leveraging festive AR Lenses to delight and inspire our massive global audience as they search for the perfect gift, share moments and have fun together,” said David Sommer, U.S. head of verticals at Snap Inc.