Snapchat Gains Super Powers with 'Incredibles 2' Augmented Reality Experience

Pixar's Incredibles 2 has entered the fray as the latest sequel in a summer of highly anticipated follow-up films and, like its peers, it also has an augmented reality experience to promote its presence in theaters.

Available via Snapchat, the AR experience places the familiar mask of the movie's super family on your face, and simple finger taps on the smartphone's screen activate various virtual superpowers. The experience continues via the rear camera, where the adorable Jack-Jack floats in the user's view and disappears into random seams in reality.

It's not the first AR experience to promote the franchise's revival, as Disney (Pixar's parent company) and Pixar have partnered with Samsung to include the characters in Samsung's AR Emoji app.

Another app, Pundit Stickers for iOS and Android, also offers a sticker pack of 15 animations based on the movie.

The summer movie season is still in its opening stretch, but marketing teams have clearly cemented augmented reality as a standard for promoting blockbuster movies.

So far, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom each have some kind of augmented reality experience as part of their promotional pushes. However, AR doesn't guarantee box office success, with the recent AR campaign on Snapchat for Star Wars Day, just days before the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, serving as a notable exception.

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Nevertheless, as AR has evolved, studios have varied their approaches as far as how to present AR content to audiences, launching sponsored AR promotions on both Facebook and Snapchat in recent months.

Regardless of approach, film studios will likely continue to turn to AR to bring movie fans promotions that provide immersive experiences in a bid to increase box office sales. And whether those promotions translate to blockbuster hits or not, we, the fans, get the benefit of having even more fun in AR.

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Cover image via Disney/Pixar