Skincare Meets Social AR: How Glow & Lovely Drove Engagement with an Interactive AR Filter
The New Imperative for Digital Engagement In today’s hyper-saturated digital landscape, static advertisements no longer cut through the noise. Brands and agencies globally are constantly seeking innovative ways to not just reach consumers, but to create meaningful, memorable, and personalised experiences that drive genuine engagement. At AliveNow, a global marketing tech studio specialising in cutting-edge […]
The New Imperative for Digital Engagement
In today’s hyper-saturated digital landscape, static advertisements no longer cut through the noise. Brands and agencies globally are constantly seeking innovative ways to not just reach consumers, but to create meaningful, memorable, and personalised experiences that drive genuine engagement.
At AliveNow, a global marketing tech studio specialising in cutting-edge experiences across Augmented Reality (AR), Generative AI, Web-based Games, and Mixed Reality (MR), we believe the future of marketing is immersive. This is the philosophy we brought to our recent collaboration with a leading skincare brand, Glow & Lovely, where we transformed a standard product message into a high-utility, interactive AR journey deployed directly on a social media platform.
This case study is essential reading for marketing professionals and agencies who are looking to integrate sophisticated, immersive technology into their next campaign.
The Challenge: Moving Beyond the Swipe-Up
For beauty and skincare brands, the marketing challenge is twofold:
- Personalisation: How can a mass-market product address an individual’s unique needs in a digital space?
- Demonstration: How can a brand effectively showcase product benefits—like a skin transformation—without expensive, low-reach video production?
The goal was to build an experience that was not just viral, but also useful. It needed to seamlessly integrate product utility and aspirational transformation, all within a high-reach, low-friction social sharing platform.
AliveNow’s Innovative Solution: Utility-Driven Social AR
We leveraged the power of AR Filters to create a multi-layered, interactive experience, turning the user’s camera into a personalised skin consultation tool.
1. Integrating Utility: Skin Assessment
The core innovation was the integration of a guided “Skin Oiliness Assessment.”
Using the phone’s camera and advanced face-tracking capabilities within the Spark AR platform, the filter was designed to simulate an analysis of the user’s skin. This step immediately provided personalised utility, making the experience relevant to the user’s immediate concerns and positioning the brand as a helpful advisor.
2. Seamless, Intuitive Interactivity
We moved beyond simple face detection by incorporating gesture control and guided voice prompts.
- Guided Voice Prompts: The filter used friendly voice cues to guide the user through the experience, telling them exactly what to do next. This made the complex process intuitive and highly accessible, significantly improving the completion rate.
- Easy Gestures: Users engaged with the filter using simple head or hand movements, adding a layer of playfulness and interactivity far beyond passive viewing.
3. The Transformation Moment: Glow & Lovely Evolution
The experience culminated in a powerful visual moment: the “Glow & Lovely evolution” transformation. After the initial assessment, the filter applied a flattering, aspirational effect demonstrating the perceived product benefits. This provided the “Aha!” moment that encourages social sharing and drives product curiosity.
This full-cycle experience—Assessment, Interaction, Transformation—ensured maximum time spent and a high likelihood of the user sharing the result with their network.
Measurable Impact: Why This Matters to Brands and Agencies
For our target audience—the decision-makers in marketing—the success of any creative tech campaign is defined by its impact. This AR filter delivered on all fronts:
- Unmatched Engagement Rates: AR filters consistently drive higher time-on-platform and repeat usage compared to standard video or image ads. Users willingly spend seconds (or even minutes) engaging directly with the brand’s message.
- Organic Virality: Interactive and personalized results are inherently shareable. Every share of the AR effect acts as an authentic, high-value endorsement from the user to their peers.
- Positioning as Innovators: Deploying custom-built creative tech experiences like this positions the client brand as a modern, forward-thinking leader in the beauty sector. For agencies, partnering with AliveNow demonstrates a commitment to delivering cutting-edge solutions for your clients’ briefs.
Ready to Build Your Next Immersive Campaign?
This Glow & Lovely campaign is just one example of how AliveNow empowers global brands and agencies to break through traditional marketing barriers. Whether you are a brand marketing team looking for a complete end-to-end creative tech partner, or an agency (Digital, Creative, Media, Event, or otherwise) needing a reliable and innovative tech execution team, we are ready to collaborate.
Our global team conceptualizes, designs, and builds scalable solutions across the entire MarTech spectrum:
- Augmented Reality (AR/MR): TikTok, Snapchat, Web AR.
- Generative AI: Building custom Gen AI campaigns for UGC and personalization.
- Interactive Gaming: Hyper-Casual Games and Playable Ads.
We turn ideas into immersive, interactive realities.
Explore our portfolio and let’s create the next big campaign together.
Contact AliveNow Today: https://www.alivenow.in
IMPORTANT – While this may be an Instagram AR experience, the same experience can be built or re-created for brands on Snapchat, TikTok or Web based AR. As Instagram AR does not support AR filters from brands any more, we can build this as a Snap AR lens, TikTok Branded Effect or Web AR experience.