VH1 wanted to make splash on Snapchat with an innovative and first-to-market Snapchat Lens to be released on the date of the season premiere.
The strong branding of America's Next Top Model created a special challenge, as the Lens needed to sustain a chic, fashionable presentation within the limitations of Snapchat's platform requirements.
Working with GLOW, VH1 achieved that and more, resulting in a new and engaging experience, the likes of which Snapchat's users had never seen.
We wanted to echo the broader ANTM campaign hook of "What's Next," so we did exactly that with our innovative Snapchat lens.
Leading up to the new season premiere, GLOW worked with VH1 consumer marketing and Snapchat to create an innovative first-to-market Snapchat Lens that gave fans the opportunity to turn their user experience into a custom photo shoot, complete with a stylized contact sheet of images at the end of the process.
Where typically a Snapchat lens may only appear on your face, and may have one or two features with no specific ultimate payoff, our approach with this lens was to deliver not just an experience, but a unique payoff as well. The user experience was as follows:
Start: The lens activates and music begins. The user is prompted to "blow a kiss". Upon doing so...
Middle: A series of camera flashes animate on screen as the lens captures a series of photos...
End: A stylized contact sheet of images animate on screen with each photo captured , showcasing the user as a TOP model. This pay-off moment could be captured as a still, or the whole experience could be saved as a video, giving lots of creative options to the fan for how to share and showcase themselves with the lens.
The entire experience was set to a featured song, "Fashion Killa," a track that was also used across other on-air , digital, and social promos, unifying the overall marketing campaign into the Snapchat experience.
This completely new user experience--one with a start, middle, end and high replay value-- was a first for Snapchat's lenses and it proved immensely popular with users, resulting in drastically above-average engagement time and posts. Plays were 62% higher than high benchmark averages, the lens received 50MM Impressions and most impressively Snapchatters were using the lens 2.8x as long as high benchmark comparisons for other lenses.
The lens was also used widely by talent and influencers such as Rita Ora, Ashley Graham, Leslie Jones, Drew Elliott, Law Roach, Lo Bosworth, Dashca Polanco, EJ Johnson, and Frankie Grande, granting top-down validation to the new season.
Unique creative, strong usage performance, and influential users made the ANTM Snapchat Lens a huge win for VH1, GLOW, and Snapchat.
