Types of AR Filters that Inspire

Augmented Reality (AR) filters are effects generated to be enhanced or superimposed on real-life images. The possibilities of AR Filters in Social Media Marketing are endless and offer an out-of-the-box experience that gives our reality a playful twist.

Table of Contents:

What is an AR Filter?

Augmented reality (AR) filters are effects generated to be enhanced or superimposed on real-life images. These AR filters work with your smartphone camera by adding a layer or image or background to your image.

AR is not just a piece of content that people are consuming, it’s content that they are experiencing in real-time — and that’s a big deal for brands.

Augmenting people’s reality truly challenges and excites marketers and businesses today, as they have to be ready to exit traditional methods of marketing and start being entertaining, humorous, funny, and to show their target audience the creativity their brand is made of.

AR filters are a relatively new and unsaturated platform with immense opportunities to make all brands shine to the best of their creativity and imagination.

Brands are constantly finding ways to capture attention in today’s competitive environment. AR filters are probably THE most interactive and effective way to harness that attention to help create awareness, increase customer retention, and to complement a brand’s social media marketing strategy.

Curious to know how AR filters can boost your marketing campaign? Click here to find out more.

Top 12 Trending AR Filters

Let’s explore the types of AR Filters that are truly inspirational and fun to apply in your digital marketing strategy. This is going to be interesting! See you in AR!

1. Make-up / Selfie Filters

With the success of Spark AR integration, brands can now create an AR filter on Instagram that encourages users to try different shades of lipstick, eyeshadow, concealer, etc, and source for their perfect color and even make a purchase instantly in the app.

This allows brands to find potential customers and generate sales.

Let’s take a look at Mac Cosmetic’s Instagram AR filter example.

2. Festive AR Filters

Feeling festive?  Be it Halloween, Christmas, or anything you wish to be a part of, it’s always good to incorporate your brand with the season with the use of AR filters.

Here are some fun examples of AR filters in Halloween action. It’s fun and easy to do!

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There are also Christmas filters that users have access to on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and etc. Brands like Starbucks leverage on the seasonal hype by using AR filters too and include them in their digital marketing campaigns. It gives off a personalized feeling.

Check out their cool Christmas AR Filter for users to interact with!

Chinese New Year is a very auspicious occasion for the Chinese and is a popular celebration worldwide. Let’s take a look at a CNY inspired AR filter by American-Chinese fast-food chain, Panda Express, and how they celebrated a Good Fortune AR experience that uses symbolism with an interactive twist to start the CNY. The AR filter enables the user to swipe up to unlock the lucky red envelope.

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Another festive celebration that is popular in Malaysia is Hari Raya and a brand that sure knows how to leverage on their reach is Ikano Centres, under IKEA Southeast Asia have launched a really refreshing and creative take on a festive ad for their #TipTokRaya campaign, that encourages the audience to participate in a dance challenge with the elder TikTok-ers who give cooking tips and recipes for the younger generation to adopt and preserve traditions through TikTok. Watch their simple but smart use of AR filters with how they change the background and their funny dance scenes. A must watch!

3. Gamified AR Filter

Beyond all the selfies and types of AR filters are games that you can engage in with a proper score and level. It’s highly interactive and fun to play around with because it’s in the app itself. Entertainment at your fingertips!

Here are some examples of gamified AR for you to try! Below is a Gamified AR Filter game on Instagram by Bank Indonesia for their campaign to raise awareness for a good cause during Hari Raya providing for the people in need. Now who says banks can’t be fun? The game encourages users to collect as much money during their journey.

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The video above is a game example taken from a TikTok AR game called Submarine. Give it a go!

Another example would be the Mister Potato 2020 CNY inspired “Bite A Malaful” AR Filter Giveaway campaign. It’s absolutely fun and urges the participants to virtually bite-catch mala chips! Let’s have that bite, shall we?

4. Branded-effect AR Filter

An agency in Malaysia created a branded AR effect for QV Skincare in efforts to raise awareness for the brand’s contest called “QV Baby Playtime with Tim” which managed to garner over 3,200 participants and managed to catch the attention of a community of mothers, getting them to post their most creative moments of their child with the AR filters provided to win cash prizes and QV products.

Here’s an example of the agency’s creative AR filter efforts. It is highly engaging for the parents!

If you’re having trouble incorporating AR filters into your social media campaign strategy and would like to increase your chances of success, let’s get in touch! 

Below is another example by Starbucks which I truly find memorable and engaging with their classic branded signature logo cup. It’s kind of cute too because the whole idea is to be a part of the Starbucks cup and replace their double-tailed mermaid mascot. It connects with your audience on a whole new level — a personal level.

5. Movie Inspired AR Filter

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, one of the most popular movie franchises worldwide was born. This movie is no other than Star Wars and it has created so much hype over their characters such as the fictional character, Darth Vader. This time, Star Wars decided to leverage on the recent release of their new movie entitled The Mandalorian featuring Baby Yoda hype with the concept of “Which Star Wars are you?” to ride the wave. This allows fans and users to feel a strong brand connection by impersonating their favorite characters with theatrics like the movie sound behind it — it’s the real deal. May the filters be with you!

6. Funny AR Filter

Funny/humorous posts or ads will always defeat the typical mundane posts that are too wordy and lack that inspirational kick to lift anybody’s mood. So we’re going to steer clear from boring and give you something silly to laugh at or impersonate.

Inspired by TikTok AR filter, I present you a random kind of funny.

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What makes this AR filter funny is the high-pitched voice along with the talking egg.

7. Interactive AR Filter

This type of AR filter is really helpful and engaging for brands that know and see their true potential. It is very simple to create, but it would be useful to create one and include it into your Facebook or Instagram stories because well, almost everyone taps on a person’s story.

These interactive posts are powerful because it asks the users a question, helps you work together with the algorithm, and it allows your brand’s followers to establish a connection with you faster.

Here’s an example from Starbucks.

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Another type of AR filter example is this one here from Systema‘s AR filter, crafted by digital marketing agency, Synergy XYZ. What a great way to put a smile on someone’s face right? Maybe it’s time to ask them some questions! If you’re thinking of a fun way to interact with your audience like this, let’s chat!

8. Animal AR Filters

Some animal filters can be impactful and make it feel as though they are a part of your reality. Take T-Rex for instance.

It creates a memorable experience and it gives you a slight fright, which is good news.

Another popular AR filter circulating around Instagram is Pokemon, personally launched by Instagram in augmented reality. With the current growth of the AR experience, Spark AR continues to shine on social media with the availability of personal favorites worldwide.

Here’s an example of Instagram’s creation “What Pokemon are you? which creates the urgency for users to check out which Pokemon character they are. Can you guess which Pokemon I got?

9. World AR Filters

Now, this one is a truly incredible idea by Oreo with the use of limited edition OREO Trolls World Tour packs and OREO cookies to trigger a special Queen Poppy performance. The filter showcases a special dance to the new soundtrack, “Just Sing (Trolls World Tour)”.

Using Spark AR, they extended Spark AR’s capabilities for image-recognition and tracking to make this awesome AR experience happen in line with the release of the Trolls World Tour under Dreamworks animation which enabled them to track 3D objects with 2D trackers which makes it even more of a personalized experience for fans.

This AR filter is available on Instagram under World AR and you can opt for a character of your own choice for a  personalized AR filtered video. I chose the character, Branch from Trolls.

Check it out! It’s an out of this world experience, indeed.

10. Accessories 

These are the little and additional accessories that come into play but they make all the difference with the meaningful effects. It would make a good fan-based video for your idol or would be a good asset for brands to highlight their products and services. Or even Valentine’s day, who knows? Let your creativity lead the way! There are no limits to what content you can create with an accessorized video with hearts.

Take the little hearts and trending music retrieved from TikTok, for instance.

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Another example of Accessories is by Gucci, they are notorious when it comes to AR filters too. They certainly know how to Guccify their filters.

Now it’s time to accessorize with Louis Vuitton‘s fancy AR filter collection for LVSS21’s Men’s Fashion Show for all to try on Instagram. Super fun!

11. Causes

These are extremely important when incorporating into campaigns, as these types of filters act to support a foundation or cause that could be to strengthen a brand message on behalf of a movement or organization’s principles. Take “Save the planet” for example.

12. Immersive Experience

Just like its name, this one is truly immersive and at the same time, it packs a punch! This type of AR filter is used to keep the viewers immersed in something that is eye-catching and gripping. It can be associated with innovation or any brand that wants it to have the Wow or shock factor.

An immersive experience is designed to captivate a person with the use of augmented reality, enhancing the real world with some jaw-dropping visuals or surroundings.

Immersive Experiences may vary when it comes to AR filters but usually includes an innovative punch!  Check out a great example of this immersive AR filter experience by 7 Eleven in collaboration with Deadpool Invasion in efforts to drive traffic to their outlets and to create awareness about the upcoming release of the film, Deadpool 2. What a fantastic WIN-WIN for all!

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Here’s Instagram’s AR filter called Supremacy Galaxy. Captivating indeed.

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This last immersive effect here is meant to give you the chills. Boo! Is it working?

Conclusion

To sum this up,  as a marketer or business owner, we should all be aware that AR filters play an integral role in society and for brands to communicate to their desired audience in social media.

AR Filters are not only utilized for the fun of it, they make it possible for brands to express themselves creatively and in a smart way to incorporate it into their digital marketing efforts quite seamlessly too.

It may not be a common practice for most marketers, but looking at how advantageous it is, there’s a lot of opportunities for brands to leverage on these AR filter platforms because it is not saturated yet in the market— it would be a foolish decision not to tap into this type of integration.

Always bear in mind too that real-time experiences generate relatively faster responses from your audience, in turn speeding up the process of your marketing funnel.

You may be new to augmented reality (AR) and it might be a challenge to start with, but there’s really no harm in exploring all the possibilities rather than remaining stagnant.

If you wish to engage with a designated digital marketing agency to fulfill your digital marketing goals, we’re here to help take your business to a whole new level!