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Lionsgate & Pepsi Launch Snapchat Augmented Reality Experiences to Promote NBA Star-Packed 'Uncle Drew'

Basketball team in vibrant orange jerseys posing confidently on a court.

Snapchat is enjoying a high field goal percentage when it comes to securing movie studio business with its sponsored augmented reality experiences, the latest coming through the basketball movie Uncle Drew.

Lionsgate and promotional partner Pepsi are running not one but two AR experiences to promote the film. One is the traditional facemask Lens, but this one uses Snapchat's background segmentation technology to put the user into the hair, glasses, and hoodie of the titular character.

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

The other experience uses Snapchat's newer Snappables format for gaming and multi-user experiences, which Snapchat recently extended to advertisers. The objective of the game is for users to open their mouths when the shot meter is green to fire up a shot.

To dip back into basketball parlance, Snapchat is on fire with movie marketing at the moment. Studios have called on Snapchat to promote Avengers: Infinity War and Incredibles 2. However, studios have also begun to take a multiple platform approach when using AR to promote their films.

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

In addition, the latest Friendmoji experience puts users into the zookeeper outfit of Chris Pratt's character from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. (Though not a sponsorship, Snapchat's Bitmoji AR have the tendency to capitalize on whatever captures the public zeitgeist at the moment.)

This looks like the confirmation we've been looking for: movie fans can now bank on seeing elaborately crafted AR experiences for most major movie opening weekends until further notice.

Cover image via Lionsgate Movies/YouTube

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