Snapchat Spectacles Gave These Brands a Whole New Point of View

Brands are making a Spectacle of themselves, already trying to fit Snapchat's new glasses into their marketing games. Spectacles hit the streets on Thursday, and agencies like VaynerMedia lined up to snatch them. Snap, the parent company name for Snapchat, dropped a salesbot on to Venice Beach, Calif., distributing the first batch of Spectacles at $130 a pop. Spectacles are sunglasses that take 10-second videos from the point of view of the wearer and then uploads them directly to a Snapchat account. "We're still geeking out over it," said Steve Babcock, VaynerMedia's chief creative officer. Agencies and brands always leap into new technology -- virtual reality or messaging app bots or high-tech glasses -- to see how it might impact marketing. Camera glasses are a tricky creative tool, however. "It's not just a camera," Mr. Babcock said. "We already have one of those on our phones. But wearing this on the head makes the POV [point of view] different." Snapchat users can tell the videos are shot through the glasses because the videos are labeled as such. VaynerMedia picked up five pairs of Spectacles in California, and flew some out to the New York office to get shooting right away. They helped Sour Patch Kids and Esquire Network post videos to their Snapchat accounts. Sour Patch Kids used the glasses to film a baking session following its special cookie recipe. "You see both hands and you're creating something," said Wesley Saraceni, Sour Patch Kids' brand manager. "It might not seem like much right now, but there's a lot we can do in the future." The Spectacles could act like a GoPro for the everyday, instead of just extreme sports, Mr. Babcock said. It remains to be seen how well the Snapchat glasses will sell and whether people will adopt them widely. For now, they are only available through vending "bots" that only appears for a limited time in a limited number of locales. Here are the examples of Sour Patch Kids, Esquire and VaynerMedia's team trying them out.

Snapchat Spectacles Gave These Brands a Whole New Point of View

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