Branded Showcase | Daft Punk: A Hidden Track In The Helmet For 10 Years?
What does music and AR have in common? 🤔 Except for being incredibly inspiring art categories, they both connect people through extraordinary experiences. So what would happen if we mixed the two? 😉 Daft Punk collaborated with Snap and took the opportunity to find out. After all, there’s no better way to promote your work than creating an immersive adventure for fans from all over the world. 🌏
Considering how much we love showing you all of the greatest designs, we just couldn’t stop ourselves from taking a closer look at this collaboration. 💓 Join us in the Branded Showcase format, to find out more about the new Snap Paris Studio’s Lens, designed exclusively for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories 10th Anniversary Edition. 🎶
After all, such inspiring ideas are just the music to our ears! 👂🎶
by Daft Punk
Purpose of Creating the Lens
Snap AR Studio Paris contributed to the launch strategy of Daft Punk Random Access Memories 10th anniversary edition. To perpetuate the creative genius of Daft Punk, very attached to their fans, always teasing them and offering exclusive contents, AR Studio in alignment with its mission to drive awareness of the potential of AR and increase its impact across Culture, Education & Entertainment, collaborated with the band’s creative and management team, to enhance the relationship that the fans have with the band, making this extra relationship even better and more magical through AR experiences. The main purpose was to engage the fans around the world generating excitement in the band’s artistic legacy.
Idea Behind the Lens
Snapchat’s AR Studio, based in Paris, teamed up with Daft Punk’s creative team to celebrate the special release of Random Access Memories 10th Anniversary Edition on Friday, May 12, 2023. The AR Studio brought to life Daft Punk: Memories Unlocked, a series of never-before-seen augmented reality experiences, to fans around the world.
On May 10th at 9 am CET, 48 hours before the anniversary edition was released, the track Horizon, originally featured on the 2013 Japanese version of the album, was unveiled to the rest of the world via the lens.
Fans were able to use the Snapchat camera to scan the original “Random Access Memories” album cover artwork to reveal a new crystal helmet AR Lens and listen to the Horizon track which was hidden within the silver and gold helmet! Flipping the camera allowed Snapchatters to wear the crystal helmet while listening to the song.
Creation Process
These experiences leverage Snap’s innovative augmented reality technologies, like the Marker Tech template in Lens Studio and Image Code, which allow AR experiences to be triggered by simply scanning an image or features that enable geo-targeted AR experiences that can only be accessed in specific locations around the globe.
Image credit: AR Studio Paris
Image credit: AR Studio Paris
Image credit: AR Studio Paris
Image credit: AR Studio Paris
Promotion
We have launched a global PR campaign and from May 11, 2023, in 6 countries around the world, the people could also discover the duo’s new 10th-anniversary crystal helmet through an extensive out-of-home billboard campaign. By scanning the QR code on the billboard, fans, and Snapchatters were able to access the new AR Lens with the embedded “Horizon” track in 6 countries from Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Sydney, London, and Liverpool, to Berlin.
The lens was also promoted organically by fans thanks to the teasing on Daft Punk’s official social media channels.
Results
The results are promising and went way beyond expected and reached a global audience of millions of fans within 24 hours.
Collaboration
The collaboration started with the creative director of the band. We worked on concepts that merged the band’s unique visual identity and AR capacity to interact and transform a physical object such as a music album. It was a fast project with less than 2 months between the brief and the release date.
Image credit: AR Studio Paris
Conclusion
This project went way beyond our expectations in terms of reach but also in terms of AR impact in the music industry. As you can easily imagine, since this launch we are receiving many requests from music labels and artists.
That’s definitely one way to promote an album! And we have to admit – a very impressive one! 🤩 With each Branded Showcase we learn about the most creative ways marketers, brands, and artists are choosing to put their works out in the world and each time we’re equally amazed by the quality of their campaigns. 👏 Great way to get inspired, isn’t it? 😏
Stay tuned, there’s much more to come! 💜