Snap’s Spidey sense is tingling in a new pact with Sony Pictures.
To hype the release of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” Sony Pictures is letting Snapchat users take selfies with the famed webslinger and his nemesis Mysterio — with the studio sponsoring the first Snapchat lens tied to four major world landmarks.
The Sony campaign uses Snapchat’s Landmarker technology, which enables location-based augmented reality experiences in real-time. The “Far From Home” Lens is available at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, the Flatiron Building in New York Ctiy, Buckingham Palace in London, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
It’s aimed at building buzz for “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” the latest Marvel superhero pic starring Tom Holland as Spider-Man and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio, which opens July 2.
Here’s how the experience works: When Snapchat users are near any of the four landmarks, a Spider-Man icon will appear in their Lens carousel. When Snapchatters point their smartphone’s camera at the building, they can watch as Mysterio appears in a cloud of smoke and Spider-Man swings into the frame to land in front of them — whereupon they can take a virtual touristy selfie with the superhero (and share it on Snapchat).
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The “Spider-Man: Far From Home” Landmark AR Lens launched June 26. Fans outside of those four landmark cities can use a standalone (non-geotargeted) Spider-Man selfie lens that goes live today (June 28). In addition, Sony’s “Spider-Man” Snapchat campaign will feature Story Ads in the form of a news channel with “newsflash”-style content, with reports on where Spider-Man has been seen around the city.
“In ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home,’ Peter Parker travels the globe, so it only made sense to enable augmented-reality effects for Spidey fans around the world,” said Elias Plishner, EVP digital marketing, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Over the last three years, Snap has build a reliable business selling premium Lenses to Hollywood marketers, notwithstanding its user-growth problems in 2018 following a poorly received app redesign. Around 70 million Snapchat users play with AR lenses on the app daily, the company said last fall.
Sony has previously bought Snapchat Lenses to promote big movie launches, including last year’s “Venom” and 2016’s “Ghostbusters” reboot.
Snap has touted the moviegoing proclivity of its youth-skewing user base. Per a study it commissioned last year from National Research Group (NRG), Snapchat users comprise 36% of all U.S. moviegoers and account for 50% of all movie ticket sales.