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Snap last week took the latest step towards scaling its AR efforts with a new partnership with RWS Global. This positions Snap to display its signature lenses on the jumbo screens at sporting events. It includes placing lenses on fans in comical ways to elevate the in-stadium experience.
This is an area that Snap has already explored and executed, such as partnerships with the company’s home-turf SoFi Stadium during L.A. Rams games. The new partnership with RWS lets it penetrate further and scale its efforts, given RWS’ installed base.
To expand on that last point, RWS is a graphics playback system that’s used by several sporting venues to enliven the fan experience. Its PV4 software does things like integrate graphics, text, and stats on in-stadium video footage. Snapchat Lenses now add to its interactive arsenal.
For Snap, this is a smart move because one relationship gets it into several sporting venues and events. From a business development perspective, this is more fruitful than fragmented deals with several stadiums or teams. And integration with PV4 offers functional advantages.
Bearing Fruit
As for how this will all materialize in the near term, the partnership will bear fruit initially in two upcoming events. The first is the World Aquatics Championships underway in Singapore. The second is the three-city British & Irish Lions Tour in Australia throughout this month and next.
What fans will see at these events is a “Snapchat Cam” that’s paired with venue video boards. As noted above, this will pick fans from the audience and dress them up in Snap lenses for comical and communal fan vibes. These Lenses can be customized to a given team or locale.
Besides letting Snap scale its AR efforts as noted above (and more below), this will likewise benefit RWS. Given that Snap’s platform has been developed and fire-tested for AR interactivity, it will elevate RWS’ graphical capabilities, including better face/body tracking and dimensionality.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time Snap and RWS have collaborated. This deal flows from the work they did together at the Paris Olympics across 37 venues. We’ll see where they take it from here and what kinds of fun and awkward fan moments they create.
Mainstream Move
Back to the part about scaling AR efforts, the in-stadium lens opportunity has always been an initiative at Snap. And this deal accelerates it. Snap stands to benefit from any financial terms of these collaborations (e.g., licensing), but also through exposure to massive audiences.
That last part could be Snap’s primary intent, as all roads lead back to boosting engagement on Snapchat – and the monetization that flows from that. By creating fun moments at sporting events, it could cultivate new users who decide they want to play with lenses all year round.
This is also demographic play, as Snap has ample headroom with mainstream audiences and overseas. Both cohorts are addressed in the RWS collaboration, and possibly represent Snap’s biggest growth opportunity. It’s all about making AR mainstream (channeling Ori Inbar).
Snap has already done this – and has gone further than anyone – considering that it sees 8 billion lens engagements per day. That’s the equivalent of one lens play per person on earth, every day. We’ll see if it can boost that engagement volume… and if it involves any stadium kiss cams.
Header Image Credit: Blake Guidry on Unsplash
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