Facebook ads are about to become a lot more fun. In the lead-up to the recent Advertising Week New York conference, Facebook announced three interactive ad formats that offer new ways for consumers to engage with brands: video poll ads, playable game ads and interactive AR ads built through Facebook’s Spark AR platform.

Each of these may look familiar, as they’re not entirely new. Video poll ads have been available in Instagram Stories for quite some time, prompting users to answer a question while watching video content. Like with Facebook’s Instant Experience formats, brands can use video polls to open up a web page in-app, allowing users to act on the video content (like downloading a mobile game as its trailer plays). Playable ads essentially function like minigames. While they were originally open to select brands, they are now available to all advertisers.

Perhaps most exciting are playable AR ads, which bring the familiar experience of selfie filters and Facebook Camera Effects into the mobile News Feed. AR ads became available to a subset of advertisers in July 2018 for testing, and the results, according to Facebook, look promising: the social network notes that AR ads drove a 27.6-point lift in purchases for WeMakeUp. By inviting users to try on lipstick shades, the ad also drove an average of 38 seconds of interaction—a significant increase in the 1.7 seconds users typically spend consuming content on the platform.

They weren’t the only ones. Fellow beauty brand Bobbi Brown tested AR ads earlier this year against regular video ads. Their AR ads—also allowing users to try on new lip colors—tripled click-through rates and doubled website purchases compared to video, according to Glossy.

Bringing Together Fun and Function

One reason the examples above are so effective because they offer a low barrier of entry to try out and experiment with products at the top of the funnel: just a single tap. “We’re still at a place where AR is a thing that people know about and can be used for advertising, but you have to go through a lot of steps to get there,” says Samuel Snider-Held, Creative Technologist at MediaMonks. “This is a way of removing one of the steps.”

While entertainment-based Camera Effects make a great way for brands to promote sharing and empower users to tell their own stories, AR ads focusing on utility can help users really understand and research a product, driving meaningful engagements and measurable results. “Makeup and glasses have been some of the most poignant use cases for advertising with Camera Effects because people immediately see it and understand it,’” says Snider-Held.

Spark AR is also an incredibly accessible platform for brands to build simple, snackable experiences, and is a low-hanging fruit for experimenting with supporting augmented reality. Developing just a single Camera Effect, for example, provides brands the opportunity to establish a direct connection with consumers at scale—especially for brands that strive to take their creative capabilities in-house, but are tight on resources.

Our Camera Effect experience for Unilever’s Signal toothbrush, transforming their Little Brush Big Brush web series into a full-fledged AR experience that gets kids in the groove of establishing healthy brushing habits. With animal mask filters and gamified elements, the Camera Effect shows how AR can be made both fun and functional, as well as the power of content to build brand love through differentiated, engaging digital experiences.

Building on User Behavior

It’s easy to see why AR ads are so effective for Facebook users: integrated directly within Stories and now the mobile News Feed, these effects fit seamlessly within the ways that users interact with one another on Facebook—opposed to, say, an AR experience that engages users on Facebook but ultimately pulls them away to an external microsite.

As brands invest more in digital advertising, they must evolve their strategies to react to emergent user behavior, because doing so is key to remaining relevant and driving meaningful engagement with their audiences. A good creative and production partner can help brands become more relatable and engaging with the dominant modes of interaction and communication today, and help them anticipate or overcome common challenges in the process.

For example, Snider-Held highlights one challenge that some brands—luxury ones in particular—may run into with AR ads: file size limitations, which make it tough to highlight minute details, like stitching on a bag. “If the file size stays limited, brands will have to decide if they want to use that space to entertain the user, or make a product model that looks as high quality as possible,” he says.

In a panel focused on the S4 Capital model at Advertising Week New York, Sir Martin Sorrell noted the that S4 is committed to partnering with tech giants and working with in-house teams—a quality that differentiates the group from the approach that traditional agencies take. This partnership can help you forecast future opportunities that emerge with new technology. “If we can use the back-facing camera as well, you could put a model of a car in your driveway,” says Snider-Held. He compares this functionality to similar uses of AR that lack the visibility offered by the Facebook News Feed, like platform-specific AR models only available on certain apps on specific devices.

But these new means of collaborating are essential in ensuring brands are equipped to engage in step with changing means of communication, perhaps even innovating in the process. We’re excited to see how Facebook has revitalized familiar ad formats like video polls and Camera Effects by transferring each to a new environment, and look forward to how both will enable new conversations between users and brands.

Experiment with Camera Effects that really inspire.

At its Snap Partner Summit just weeks ago, Snapchat announced its Snap Games platform. A bit like Facebook’s Instant Games for Messenger, Snap Games are simple, HTML5-based experiences that users can instantly activate via chat. What makes the platform unique, though, is that its games seamlessly integrate into the chat platform, allowing users to continue talking to friends via text or audio as they play. The move signals the changing way that brands and users are approaching games: not just as a diversion, but as a means of connecting digitally with one another through shared experience.

“Friendship is more than just the things you chat about,” Head of Snap Games Will Wu explained to an audience at the summit. “Friendship is also about experiences you have together.” He went on to highlight the need for offering an environment for friends to get together and do more than just socialize—an idea that’s taken wind as people have come to view the popular game Fortnite as more than just a game but rather a hot, new social environment.

Today’s Gamer Isn’t Who You May Think They Are

The still-new platform isn’t yet open for everyone to develop, but brands and developers that are inspired by the sense of play can still provide gaming experiences in the platform. Take Snappables, for example, which are Snap-produced selfie lenses infused with game mechanics to make them more fun. While the Snappables moniker is reserved for lenses developed by Snap themselves, anyone can likewise make experiences of their own that are game-like.

First, why support game-based AR lenses? The gaming population has changed surprisingly with the growing popularity of mobile gaming. While many assume the typical gamer is a boy under the age of 18, running the numbers challenges that notion: according to a report by the Entertainment Software Association, 45% of US gamers are women, and the average age for female gamers is 36. The average age of gaming males in 32.

Second, the social mobile environment is an easy fit for supporting modern gaming behaviors. According to the same ESA report, 42% of gamers play together with friends, while 36% play on a smartphone—equal to the percentage of gamers who play on dedicated game consoles.

Consumers Seek Value-Added Interactions

But for MediaMonks Senior Project Manager Tommy Lacoste, infusing an AR lens with game mechanics often just makes sense for providing a compelling interactive element without making the experience too complex. “People typically want to emulate flashy, cool AR experiences that they’ve seen elsewhere, but the experience must demonstrate brand value or fit the platform,” says Lacoste.

For example, our #LongestGoal Snapchat lens (made in collaboration with 180 LA for UNICEF to celebrate the World Cup) challenged users to scream “Goal!” for as long as possible. The longer they yelled, the higher their score—turning a key spectator behavior into an opportunity for friendly competition. The interaction perfectly fit the brand goal—in this case, highlighting a World Cup campaign.

As a Snapchat partner, MediaMonks helps brands zero in on ideas for captivating interactive experiences by offering several options to build on a brand’s idea. “We try to enhance ideas by taking them to the next level,” says Lacoste. But this can be tricky, as AR lenses for Snapchat and Facebook Camera alike are constrained to specific size limits. To squeeze the most value and functionality out of your experience, working with a creative and production partner who knows how to balance platform opportunities and limitations is key.

Designing an AR experience is easier than you think.

Selfie Lenses Go Beyond Face Masks

Gamified lenses that emulate Snap’s own Snappables series of games require quite a bit of ingenuity and creativity. “You don’t usually see much of this sort of thing with AR lenses, because it’s not necessarily the way they were originally intended,” says Lacoste. But adding in game mechanics doesn’t make a Snap lens heavier; instead, it requires technical understanding of what’s possible given advances in computer vision.

“With the Snapchat AR Developer Platform, we can detect where your head or parts of the body are,” says Lacoste. “From there, we can detect and measure interactions with virtual objects. So if we wanted the user to bounce a virtual ball on their head or nose, we can count that and keep score.” With these game-like interactions, selfie lenses go beyond being simple facial masks and encourages interactivity—and a reason to keep playing to get a high score.

Our recent Snapchat lens for ice-cream brand Magnum does this by challenging users to try to eat every Magnum bar floating around them before their screen fills with ice-cream, a bit like bobbing for apples. “Testing is crucial with these experiences,” says Lacoste. “First, you need to prototype and iterate the technical side of things. Second, you also must ensure the experience is fun…or funny for the user.”

That’s a good point: chomping at virtual ice-cream bars that dangle around you may be fun, but it’s also fun for others to watch. While a user may feel driven to share their high score, playing with the lens results in user-generated content that’s sure to get a laugh from friends. And that brings us back to our starting point: today’s consumer seeks out experiences they can enjoy among friends. Gamified AR selfie lenses offer an excellent opportunity for brands to provide simplified yet engaging moments to deliver on this demand.

Dive deep into the possibilities of mixed reality.