For many brands, it is time to unwrap the long awaited Holiday ambiance and sparkle their magic around by sharing memorable online experiences. What better way to inspire and get followers excited for your brand’s Holiday efforts by offering engaging and meaningful Augmented Reality (AR) content? ARFECTED – The AR Agency has selected four jaw-dropping ideas on how to use Social AR Filters for your brand to stand out from the crowd during the upcoming socially distant Holiday times.
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Idea 1 – Games

The Holiday season is also known for the time to snuggle up and play games with your family and loved ones. However, in the current times, Covid is impacting these family gatherings and chances are rather high that we will be spending our Holiday times in a more individualistic way than ever before. Let your fans engage with your brand with awesome winter games – and let them be exposed to your products and brand for sometimes even 45 seconds!

The engagement rate is often sky-high with face filter games, imagine your Christmas Face Filter going through the roof!

Filter: Snowball Fight

Idea 2 – Fashion/Beauty

Let your followers try out your fashion items or make-up via Instagram or Snapchat and get inspired for Holiday gifts! This can be done with a Social AR filter, a magical experience will happen which will be memorable and shareable, while exposing your product in the filter.

Filter: Sephora

Idea 3 – Ambiance

Retouching the user’s filter by adding an ambient sphere over their photos or videos gives just that extra bit of a Holiday feeling. Everyone would like to share beautifully polished Instagram content during the Holidays, right? Create that bit of an extra feeling and connect with your followers by adding ambiance filters in your Christmas campaign.

Filter: Christmas Tree

Idea 4 – Product AR

Spice up the magic of your Holiday products by bringing them to live in an Instagram or Snapchat filter. Secretly, AR can be used as a promotional tool, as product placement can be enhanced in those filters and can help create realistic product expectations.

Filter: Starbucks Indonesia

How does AR fit in your Christmas campaign?

But how do you decide whether your Christmas campaign plans have room for Social AR Filters? There is just one really important consideration factor: your customers!
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What are the needs of your customers and would those needs be able to be met by adding a Social AR filter in your campaign? Next to that, do your customers understand the value of a Social AR Filter and would they engage with it? Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more likely to engage with filters where they can express themselves, e.g. with face games or face filters, whereas the elderly generations also see the advantage of trying a product in AR. Your audience should be considered first to decide what kind of AR engagement you want to create for them to improve the online experience.