Sweat embraces augmented reality in latest consumer engagement challenge

The Sweat challenge on Snapchat

Tapping into Snapchat’s full-body augmented reality (AR) lens is allowing Sweat a fresh take on social media engagement as its debuts the latest new year Sweat Challenge, its CEO says.  

Sweat became the first Australian brand this month to utilise Snap’s latest AR advancement, 3D Full Body Tracking technology. The interactive tool is designed to track a consumer’s body movements while they exercise and is being used by Sweat to help correct a user’s technique and form and chart their movements as they trial a new workout experience.  

Sweat co-founder and CEO, Tobi Pearce, told CMO Snapchat’s 3D AR tech works well in building a deep brand connection as consumers experience a new concept of a virtual workout. The range of physical exercises involved in the new campaign include squats through to reverse lunges. Users earn points based on how accurately they complete the exercise with correct form.   

“AR isn’t something we have taken advantage of on a regular basis, so we decided to leverage this technology to coincide with our new year Sweat Challenge and offer a fun and interactive brand experience,” Pearce said. “We have always believed that fitness is social, and as such, we think this is a great social experience centred around fitness.”  

The AR offering supplements a broader new year campaign promoting the six-week Sweat Challenge. Pearce said the company is hoping the Snapchat lens will drive both awareness and encourage app downloads during what is traditionally an important time of year for fitness and health resolutions.  

“We have a fantastic partnership with Snapchat, and have been advertising with them for several years, steadily growing our footprint and diversifying our approach to both paid media in general, as well as on the Snapchat platform,” Pearce continued. “This lens is an exciting experiment for us to trial new ways to engage with our audience, whereas our typical approach is direct response-focused advertising utilising both Snap and Story ads.”  

Snap’s 3D Full Body Tracking tech can be captured by both front and rear-facing cameras and was built from the recently released 2D body tracking technology. It steps the technology up from tracking eight-joint upper body to tracking 18 joints across the whole body. The latest AR capability launched in August 2020.  

3D motion capture and multiple neural networks running simultaneously in real-time use machine learning to work out and focus on exercise form following the guidance provided by the Sweat Lens.

While Sweat is the first Australian brand to take advantage of the latest offering, Snap confirmed the other brand to have utilised this capability globally is Canadian coffee brand, Tim Hortons, last October. In that case, the sponsored body tracking lens enabled users to turn themselves into a box of its Timbits bite-sized donuts.

According to Snap, 180 million users engage with AR in its app daily. The company built theselLenses via an internal version of its AR creation tool, Lens Studio. In the future, this new technology could become available in the public version of Lens Studio, Snap’s free desktop-based app that allows anyone to create and publish their own AR experiences on Snapchat.

Related: Sweat chief brand and marketing officer joins the CMO50 in 2020

CMO interview: What Sweat's chief brand and marketing officer is doing to support fast growth

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, follow our regular updates via CMO Australia's Linkedin company page, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia.