Snapchat tries to attract advertisers with Halloween series featuring AI and AR

Snap is releasing a mystery series for Halloween in which content creators try to escape a haunted house. The hook is that users of the app, armed with augmented reality (AR) filters and generative AI selfies, must help the influencers find their way out. “Phantom House” is a first for Snap in combining cinematic production, interactive gameplay and shiny new tools as a way to entice users. The effort also sees the company attracting advertisers in a novel way as it contends with faltering ad demand amid a changing digital advertising landscape. “We’re trying to bring Snapchat into the real world,” said Eric Baldwin, executive creative director at Snap. In the series, the trapped content creators—Tony Talks, Sofie Dossi and Ezee—have to solve puzzles in order to escape a haunted house. App users can participate in these games via Lenses, which use AR to alter reality as seen through a user’s camera. For example, one Lens will superimpose a table from the series’ world, at which a user can join one of the stars and help them solve a puzzle. Generative AI will play a role in courting new users to join the game. In the coming weeks, Snap will roll out “Phantom House”-themed Dreams, which alter selfies into fantastical images using generative AI. Snap launched the feature in August. Keeping users engaged for a single event is one thing; maintaining engagement in the same storyline over the course of three weeks could prove far more difficult. This is why Snap is planning to blast content promoting “Phantom House” across all four tabs of its app. The Chat feature will be used by Snap to encourage users to get involved, Camera will offer specialty Lenses, Stories will promote behind-the-scenes footage from the stars and Spotlight will feature a mystery challenge timed to one of the series’ installments. “We want to give users a feeling that they need to help find clues,” Baldwin said. Also read: 6 AI tools for marketers These methods may also serve to suggest to advertisers that their ads won’t go to waste. Ensuring and measuring performance on mobile platforms such as Snap has become a pain point thanks to disruptions in tracking technology from Apple, and soon Google. Snap has been developing new measurement infrastructure to keep advertisers interested. As for the ads themselves, brands can appear alongside “Phantom House” via their own AR experiences, as well as commercials placed within the show. Maybelline, for example, is activating a branded Lens through Snap’s “First Lens” offering, which prioritizes the experience over others. Meanwhile, Snap is coming to advertisers’ home turf to further court interest. The company will unveil an out-of-home activation, themed around “Phantom House,” at Advertising Week New York later this month. According to Baldwin, the experience will try to show brands how they can appear in series like “Phantom House,” for which a sequel is already being discussed.

Snapchat tries to attract advertisers with Halloween series featuring AI and AR

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