Snap Chat Lens Snap AR

May's Newsletter

In this issue of our newsletter, we are excited to recap all the creative content we made and shared throughout the month of May. As always, we would like to thank our clients and business partners for their endless support and flexibility. We hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!

 

TIKTOK EFFECT HOUSE X BTM AR MIXER

In conjunction with the AWE conference in Santa Clara, California, we had the wonderful opportunity of co-hosting an event with TikTok Effect House. This event featured a fireside chat between our AR Manager/Effect House designer Vedika Bhasin and Effect House community lead Greg Feingold. We loved getting to connect with over 100 people and share our love of AR and all things Effect House.

 

TikTok effect house

tiktok effect house

We are looking forward to hosting more events—maybe even another one in LA! Follow us on social media to stay updated on the latest news regarding these meetups.

FOLLOW US @baretreemedia

🪩 NEBULA DANCE 🕺🏽

Our latest Snapchat Lens “Nebula Dance” was featured at the SnapAR Lounge at the 2023 AWE conference in Santa Clara, California. We enjoyed watching AR creators, designers, industry leaders, and those interested in the space get groovy in the galaxy.

If you did not make it to AWE, our lens is available on Snapchat. Scan the code or click here to try it out.

SUMMER THEMES FOR SAMSUNG 📱

The Golden Girls - Sunny Vibes

Bring the good times and sunny vibes to your Samsung device with the latest Golden Girls Samsung Theme.

“The Golden Girls: Sunny Vibes” is available now to download from the Galaxy Store.

GOLDEN GIRLS

“Rays and Shine,” grab a friend, and “Smurf the Waves!” Perfect way to spend a beach day! The Smurfs released two new summer Samsung Themes on the Galaxy Store. Click the links below to download.

Smurfs

                                                  Rays & Shine                                                                                                        Smurfing the Waves

IN OTHER NEWS 📰
Our AR Technical Consultant & Snap Lens Ambassador, Naomi Eberle, spoke at Snap Inc.’s Partner Summit alongside Ambassadors, Sallia Goldstein & Mohamed Sorkatti. The three of them delivered an informative lecture on navigating SnapAR's ecosystem and how brands can leverage their technologies to develop immersive, creative AR experiences. We are so proud of Naomi and cannot wait to hear her share her expertise at future guest lectures!

Snap Chat Lens Snap AR

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Senior Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Creative Partner Day TikTok

April's Newsletter

In this issue of our newsletter, we are excited to recap all the creative content we made and shared throughout the months of March and April. As always, we would like to thank our clients and business partners for their endless support and flexibility.

 

LENS FEST EXTENDED

BTM x SnapAR in NYC! We held our 3rd Augmented Reality Meetup, “Lens Fest Extended,” at the Snap Inc. offices in New York City. We had such a great turnout and enjoyed connecting with many members of the AR community. Our guest speaker, Maya Pruitt, gave a great presentation on machine learning (ML) models!

 

snapchat

 

In the coming months, we are looking forward to hosting more AR events both in Boston and New York City. Follow us on social media to stay updated on the
latest news regarding these meetups.

 

FOLLOW US @baretreemedia

 

MARCH HIGHLIGHTS 🍀

St. Patrick's Day

CLINK. CLINK. CLINK. We’re “cheersing” to another great St. Patrick’s Day weekend! Check out this

St. Patrick’s Day GIF we designed on our socials or on Tenor.

 cheers

First Day of Spring

Happy First Day of Spring! We sure are ready for some warmer, brighter weather here in Boston! Our intern, Julia, used our Spring

BTM logo to create this fun springtime GIF for our socials.

spring

 

Snap-on St. Patrick's Day

Three St. Patrick’s Day-themed messaging stickers are available on the Snap-on Tools app.

You’ll want to wish your friends a “Snappy” St. Patrick’s Day with these stickers.

St. Patrick's Day

DOG APPRECIATION MONTH 🐶

Our intern, Julia, designed this "Brady Bunch inspired" GIF to showcase all of Bare Tree Media's wonderful dogs. For more animated dog content, check out our "Adopt a Shelter Pet" series on our GIPHY page. 

dogs brady bunch

Last year for #NationalAdoptaShelterPetDay, our AR team designed a Snapchat lens pet owners could use on their own pets. This year, our AR team made this effect available for TikTok. Check out our Snapchat and our TikTok to try it out on your own furry friend today! Remember: Adopt Don't Shop!

adopt a shelter pet

 

IN OTHER NEWS 📰

Our team members have been busy the past 2 months attending different networking events around the country. We’ve enjoyed flexing our creative muscles, learning more about up-and-coming technology in the gaming and AR spaces, and of course, networking with other creative marketing partners.

pax east

We checked out the latest in all things gaming at the PAX East and GDC gaming conferences. It was great to discuss with other avid gamers and brands ways to build immersive experiences within gaming platforms, social AR, and the metaverse.

As one of the creative partners for TikTok, our AR team had the honor of designing the Effect House AR experience for TikTok Creative Partner Day in LA. This Effect House experience had a catch…the special effects are activated by a series of mystery gestures. We love creating interactive experiences that keep our audiences engaged!

Creative Partner Day TikTok

In need of something unique for your brand? Our company would love to use Effect House to create AR experiences for you to share. To see what you can create using Effect House, check out the effects we have made on our TikTok profile @baretreemedia and contact us for more information at info@baretreemedia.com

FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK @baretreemedia

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Senior Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


AR Meetup Bare Tree Media

March Newsletter

In this issue of our newsletter, we are excited to recap all the creative content we made and shared throughout the month of February. We would like to thank our clients and business partners for their endless support and flexibility.

 

Augmented Reality Meetup #2 is officially in the books! Despite the snow and icy weather conditions, we had a great turnout for our second SnapAR-sponsored meetup at Workbar in Boston. Naomi Eberle, an official Snap Lens Ambassador, presented a great demo on “Leveraging the Behavior Script.” Our attendees had so much fun learning from her presentation.

 

 

Check out our socials or the next edition of our newsletter to hear more about our March 2nd Meetup, “Lens Fest Extended.” We are looking forward to connecting with new and familiar faces in NYC and cannot wait to hear Maya Pruitt’s presentation on machine learning (ML) models for object tracking.

 

KEEP CALM & TWEET ON 📱

The ending of Super Bowl LVII was crazy but the ads were even crazier! Our design team had the opportunity of designing Twitter Branded Likes and Hashtags for some of the game’s most popular ads. Our lead animator, Chihiro, even had his Doritos animation featured in their ad during the commercial break!

 

Super Bowl Twitter Doritos

 

Pepsi Co. and Doritos wanted to engage their viewers not just on the TV screen but on Twitter. To help them out, we designed a branded like for each of them that went live for 24hrs the day of Super Bowl LVII. Fans of Pepsi and Doritos could trigger the design on Twitter by liking posts with the following hashtags: #RealorActing or #DoritosTriangleScheme. It was truly amazing to witness how many Twitter users engaged with our branded likes throughout the game.

 

twitter PepsiTwitter Doritos

 

LOVE WITH AR🌹

 

Looking to up your Valentine’s Day game? Our AR, Design, and Social Media teams worked together to launch multiple Valentine’s AR experiences across various platforms.

AR Love Valentine's Day

Be My Valentine:

This filter created using SparkAR for Instagram Camera and Facebook allows you to interact with your Valentine virtually. The “Be My Valentine” Filter asks the recipient to either accept or deny the sender’s romantic request!

You Light Me Up:

The “You Light Me Up” Snap Lens is perfect for showing love to friends, family, and significant others. Want to show some love to yourself too? We designed a similar lens that’s all about appreciating your self-sufficient, stylish self!

1 MSG from Valentine:

Want to know what your crush is thinking? Get a message from your Valentine with this TikTok effect!

Follow us on TikTok @baretreemedia

FEBRUARY FAVORITES 💝

Smurfs: LOVE

Samsung Valentines SmurfsShow some love to your special someone (and the Smurfs) via Samsung. We had the opportunity to design this Samsung Theme for Galaxy users—just in time for Valentine’s Day! Spread love all year round by downloading this theme from the Galaxy Store.

VALENTINE'S DAY 💘

BE MINE Hearts Valentin's Day animation

 

GROUNDHOG DAY

Our intern, Julia, designed two magical GIFs for Groundhog Day. With these GIFs, viewers could predict whether or not Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow on February 2nd. Unfortunately, the crystal ball revealed 6 more weeks of winter—the end of February has been a cold and snowy one for us here in Boston!

 

Groundhog Day Animation

 

IN OTHER NEWS 📰

Our AR team submitted a connected lens for the SnapAR Lensathon contest. With “Chaos Hoops,” users can play a game of basketball with friends from all over the world in real time. We’ve loved getting to watch users embrace their inner Lebron and Tatum with this lens.

Scan the snap code or click here to try out “Chaos Hoops” on Snapchat. We cannot wait to see all the cool work AR developers and designers created for this contest!

chaos hoops snap chat lens

 

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Senior Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Winter

February's Newsletter

In this issue of our newsletter, we are excited to recap all the creative content we made and shared throughout the month of January. As we move into February, we would like to send some love to our clients and business partners by thanking them for their endless support and flexibility.

 

BOSTON AR MEETUP

 

We would like to thank everyone who attended our first SnapAR-sponsored meetup at Workbar in Boston. This was a great opportunity for members of the AR community and those interested in AR to connect and learn more about this industry. We would also like to thank Naomi Eberle, an official Snap Lens Ambassador, for sharing her knowledge and expertise on Connected Snap lenses.

 

AR Meetup

 

We look forward to hosting another event soon and want to continue to build community within the AR ecosystem. Stay tuned for more information about our next meetup on our socials.

 

AR PROJECTS

Our AR team has been hard at work to create interactive experiences for Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram users. Check out some of the lenses they made below.

 

We collaborated with the Smurfs to create an interactive Snapchat lens to promote positive planet and environmental practices. Help the Smurfs keep our beaches clean by picking up beach waste with this lens. Scan the snapcode or click here to try “Smurfs: Beach Cleanup.”

Smurfs
CAT HUG

January 21 is #NationalHugDay and there’s nothing better than receiving a hug from one of our favorite furry friends. Open Snapchat and let this kitty curl up around your head for a nice warm hug. Scan the snapcode or click here to try “Cat Hug.”

 

Cat Hug

 

 

 

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Senior Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Winter

January's New-Years-letter

Happy New Year! To kick off 2023, we are excited to recap all the holiday content we made and shared throughout the month of December. We would like to say thank you to our clients and business partners, and we look forward to creating and collaborating with you all throughout 2023.

 

HANUKKAH LIGHTS 🕎

We would like to wish a Happy first day of Hanukkah to all those who celebrate! Users can pretend to blow on the screen to light the Menorah. Scan the snapcode or click the link below to try “Light the Menorah”!

Follow us on Snapchat @baretreemedia and tune in to see all the new and exciting AR content we will be releasing to Snapchat in the coming year.Hanukkah Snapchat

LIGHT THE MENORA

 

PUT YOUR UGLY SWEATER ON 🧶

For National Ugly Sweater day on December 17, our AR team created a voice-activated, interactive try-on lens featuring ugly sweaters designed by BTM team members. We even created a BTM-themed sweater!

Click here or scan the snapcode to try “BTM Ugly Sweater Lens!"

Ugly Sweater Snapchat Lens

Ugly Sweater Snap Code Lens

SEASONS GREETINGS WITH SAMSUNG ❄️

What better way to celebrate the holiday season than with some Samsung Themes? We collaborated with a number of brands to bring some holiday cheer to Samsung Galaxy users’ devices. See them below.

The Smurfs Christmas Cheer

Papa Smurf, Smurfette, and crew are bringing the Christmas spirit to your Samsung devices. This theme is perfect Christmas customization. Click here to download the latest Smurf theme from Galaxy Store.

Smurfs Samsung Theme

Betty Boop Loves Christmas 

We love the holidays almost as much as Betty does! Betty invites Galaxy users to get into the holiday spirit with her latest Samsung Theme. Click here to download “Betty Boop: Loves Christmas” from the Galaxy Store.

Betty Boop Samsung Theme

Garfield Christmas With Friends

Gather by the fireside and around the tree with Garfield and friends this holiday season. Make messaging the ones you love this holiday season even more festive with the “Garfield: Christmas With Friends” Samsung Theme, available now in the Galaxy Store.

Garfield Christmas Samsung Theme

IN OTHER NEWS 📱

Spotify Wrapped is the most wonderful time of the year for music listeners around the world! Twitter users flocked to share how they listened throughout 2022 and when liking any tweet with the hashtag #SpotifyWrapped, they could trigger a fun design. It was truly amazing to witness how many Twitter users engaged with our branded like on the wrapped release date.

Spotify Wrapped Twitter

It’s time to get holly and jolly with the Golden Girls! Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose will keep your friends “laughing all the way” with their holiday sticker pack. Click here to find it in the Galaxy Store.

Golden Girls Holiday Stickers

 

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Senior Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Winter

December's Newsletter

 

To kick off the month of December, we are excited to recap all the creative content we made and shared throughout the month of November in this issue of our newsletter. We would like to say thank you to our clients and business partners for their endless support and flexibility. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Check out our social media pages in the next few weeks for some ho-ho-holiday surprises. Our pages will be filled with fun and festive content to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year!

Thanksgiving

 

✨ ENCHANTED WITH DISENCHANTED ✨ 

Raise your hand if you are an OG Enchanted fan  (all of our hands are raised *very* high)! Our team had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Disney to design eight animated stickers for the release of Enchanted’s sequel, Disenchanted. We loved seeing our favorite characters—Giselle, Robert, and Prince Edward—come to life.

Click the link below to see them all on Walt Disney Studios’ official GIPHY page and be sure to catch Disenchanted on Disney+.

 

Disney Disenchanted

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS GIPHY

KEEP CALM AND TWEET ON 🗣

What better way to kick off the holiday season than with Twitter branded likes? See our Twitter Feed for some of the work that was designed and released this month.

Twitter Santa Claus

#TheSantaClauses

Scott Calvin is now on TV! Our design and animation teams had the opportunity to create a branded like to promote the premiere of Disney’s newest holiday mini-series, the Santa Clauses. By liking any tweet with #TheSantaClauses, Twitter users watched Scott Calvin transform into Santa in just a matter of seconds.

Glass Onion Twitter

#GlassOnion

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? This branded like had fans of Knives Out (and Chris Evans) excited for the November 23rd premiere of the franchise’s newest installment, Glass Onion.

#SpreadingChristmasCheer

Our animation and design teams helped European grocery brands Lidl, Tesco, and ASDA get creative in promoting products and deals for the upcoming holiday season. Each brand’s custom design was attached to a unique trigger hashtag. ASDA even got a little help from everyone’s favorite, Buddy the Elf.

Twitter Branded LikeTwitter Branded Likes

THANKFUL FOR THEMES 📱

We are oh so thankful that we get to design themes for well-known brands. This month, we collaborated with Betty Boop and Dungeons and Dragons to bring fans some custom theme designs. Click the links below to download “Romantic Rebel” and “DND: Stacked Against the Odds” from the Galaxy store today.

 

D&D STACKED AGAINST THE ODDS

Betty Boop

BETTY BOOP: ROMANTIC REBEL

#VOTE 🇺🇸

November 08, 2022 marked midterm elections in the United States. This Instagram camera effect encourages not just our fans but everyone to get out and vote. To vote for a change, every voice matters. Find our "Vote for a Change" filter on Instagram Camera or on our effects page.

VOTE

FREAKY FREEBIE 🎃

Halloween may be over, but for our spooky season lovers, we have a freaky freebie for you. Check out Snapchat page @baretreemedia and click here to try

"Pumpkin Head Ghost!"

Halloween

 

 

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

Project Manager
2D Illustrator & Animator

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


November's Newsletter

 

To kick off the month of November, we are excited to recap all the *spooktacular* creative content we made and shared throughout the month of October in this issue of our newsletter. As always, we would like to thank our clients and business partners for their endless support and flexibility, and we hope everyone had a great Halloween!

 

STUDIO SPOTLIGHT 🔦

Intern

Meet Wendy, our summer illustration and animation sprout! Wendy worked closely with our senior illustrator and AR/animation teams to create her own personal sticker pack for GIPHY, Tenor, and iMessage.

We will miss Wendy and look forward to seeing all her future creations! Please scroll down to learn more about the personal project she worked on while
interning at the studio.

“Through Tea for Teaspoon, I got to explore so many of my interests, like character design, complex rigging, and 3D animation. With the help of my coworkers, I was finally able to accomplish my dream of designing my own personal sticker pack, while also challenging myself to learn new skills”

TEA FOR TEASPOON 🍵

Nothing is more rewarding than seeing our summer interns’ projects come to life.

O.M.Tea! Meet Teaspoon—a mighty, fearsome matcha-thief brewing with mischief. Keep an eye out on your own cup, for you never know where he’ll pop up next…maybe even in your messages?! For Wendy’s personal project, she used Maya to create animated 3D stickers inspired by some of her favorite things!

“I thought about the things I love and wouldn't mind working on for 6 months. I settled on matcha, hamsters, and deer. I also drew inspiration from the sticker packs I personally use. Taking all of this into account, I designed 21 silhouettes, narrowed it down to 8 thumbnails, and finally iterated on 1 design. That's how
I ended up with Teaspoon!”

matcha tea

 

As an animation student at Northeastern University, Wendy was able to explore the entire pipeline—character concept, color, modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, and animating. She was able to develop marketable skills across multiple disciplines. Her favorite part was getting to design all of Teaspoon’s expressions!

Click the link below to download these 3D animated stickers from the App Store. You can also find them on GIPHY and Tenor. They are sure to last you an oolong time.


ha ha

DOWNLOAD TEA FOR TEASPOON
IT'S FREE!

HALLOWEENISH HIGHLIGHTS 🎃

 

Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus

The Sanderson Sisters are back and spookier than ever! Our illustration and animation teams had the opportunity to design some animated stickers for their return. Find them on GIPHY, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Put on your best Halloween costume, pour yourself a big glass of witches brew, and watch Hocus Pocus 2, available now on Disney Plus.

Smurfs Halloween Samsung Theme

Are you ready to have a smurfalicious Halloween? Get spooooky with the Smurfs and download The Smurfs: Fright Club Samsung Theme from the Galaxy Store.

Halloween Samsung Icon Pack

Our illustration team wanted to share their love for Halloween with Samsung users. Customize your Samsung device with this Halloween-themed icon pack. Each icon was created by our team and contains a little design with a ghoulish twist! Download from the Galaxy Store today.

Samsung Icon pack

KEEP CALM AND TWEET ON 🗣

There’s nothing we love more than designing Twitter branded likes and hashtags for our partners! See our Twitter Feed for some of the work that was created and released this month.

#SmileMovie

Started off spooky season with a smile! Our design and animation teams had the opportunity to create a branded like to promote the premiere of fall’s newest psychological horror film, Smile! Don’t let the smile fool you…(we’d know)!

Smile movie twitter branded like

#IWTV

Fans of the original Interview With a Vampire were in for a treat! Using dark and light mode play, a concept we began to incorporate into our designs at the start of the new year, Twitter users in dark mode now get an extra surprise when they hit the like button. The Interview With a Vampire series is available to watch now on AMC.

#withAMEX

We got to help American Express members get ready for Member Week. By liking any tweet with #withAmex, Twitter users not only received reminders for all the offers and experiences available but also got to see our design and animation skills at work.

Amex twitter branded like

#InternationalCoffeeDay

We’d like a cup of that coffee! As the exclusive creator of branded likes for the Middle East regions, we had the opportunity to use our design skills to celebrate Saudi Arabia’s #InternationalCoffeeDay.

Coffee Day Twitter Branded Like

BRANDED HASHTAGS #️⃣

Designing Twitter emojis for branded hashtag campaigns brings us joy! Kraft Mac & Cheese, CheezIt, and BRAVO are some of the many brands we did projects for this month. Check out our website to see some of our other Twitter branded hashtag work.

Twitter emojis

 

We're Growing The Team! 🌱

We are currently hiring for the following positions within the company:

2D Senior Animator

3D FX/Game Designer

Augmented Reality (AR) Developer

If any of these sounds like you or someone you know, send a resume and portfolio link to info@baretreemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


#StickingTogether in the Face of COVID-19

Tough times are upon us. Here at Bare Tree, we are closely monitoring the situation that is developing around the world. We hope everyone is staying healthy, safe and socially distanced. Our team of artists and developers is working remotely continuing to make engaging stickers and augmented reality effects that will hopefully bring some brightness to people’s lives.

As events are cancelled and people are using social distancing to combat COVID-19 continues, many businesses are feeling the strain. Among them are indie artists, many of whom rely on sales at conventions to make their living. Being illustrators, animators and designers ourselves, we want to salve some of the hurt our community is currently experiencing due to cancelled conventions, commissions and projects. Because of this we are opening up our services and expertise to any artists interested in selling their art as stickers for the next 90 days.

Our team will work with the artists to determine what work of theirs would be best as messaging stickers or give tips on best practices for stickers if they choose to create something new. Once the stickers are complete, we will publish them for sale on popular messaging apps like iMessage and Google Play. All ownership of the work will, of course, remain with the artist. The artist will also receive 100% of the proceeds.

We will soon be publishing a separate blog post that will be continuously updated with links to the newly released indie artist stickers, so look out for it and keep checking back. Together, we can support each other and make it through this!

If you are an artist and interested in taking part, please email info@baretreemedia.com with the subject line '#StickingTogether'

Sending hugs from Tod and Sal, a sticker duo created by former BTM Sprout, Amy!


Wimpy Kid, Inc Expands Digital Engagement with Augmented Reality and Sticker Keyboards

Boston, MA – January 24, 2020 – Fellow Massachusetts-based companies Wimpy Kid, Inc. and Bare Tree Media Inc., expanded their digital partnership with the introduction of augmented reality social media effects and a global expansion of their stickers within keyboard mobile applications.

To kick off 2020, Bare Tree Media designed and released three augmented reality effects themed around the latest installment in the popular middle-grade series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 14: Wrecking Ball. The AR effects offer users the ability to insert a swinging virtual wrecking ball into their camera scene and then wreck, record, and share a real world scene of their choice. The AR filters are available to engage Wimpy Kid fans on popular messaging platforms, Facebook and Instagram, and as an AR lens on Snapchat.

Bare Tree Media also expanded their Wimpy Kid-branded digital presence to include digital stickers released within Baidu’s keyboard apps worldwide, including Facemoji Keyboard in the United States, Simeji in Japan, and Baidu IME in China.

‘Augmented reality is a great marketing platform for brands to engage audiences, and a perfect fit for the Wimpy Kid fanbase to create and share their special moments with a wrecking ball,” said Bob Ferrari, CEO of Bare Tree Media. “We are also very excited to expand sticker distribution through Baidu in key markets around the world.” 

“We are delighted to be kicking off 2020 by launching these stickers with Bare Tree Media and Wimpy Kid, Inc.,” said Josh Fenn, Senior Marketing Manager at Baidu. “Now, our keyboard app users around the world can all enjoy Wimpy Kid’s uniquely charming brand of humor when they chat with their friends online.”

“I’ve loved seeing fans around the globe engage with the Wimpy Kid brand using our existing emoji-style stickers. This year, we wanted to expand the Wimpy Kid universe and I’m thrilled to have the brand-new augmented reality and sticker formats on major global platforms. I’m really looking forward to seeing where Greg can go with his fans in 2020!” said Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

About Bare Tree Media

Bare Tree Media enables brands to reach, engage and entertain consumers through the creation and digital publishing of branded emojis, messaging stickers, GIFs and augmented reality. As a pioneer in the digital creative and technology sector, Bare Tree Media has worked with many brands including: 20th Century Fox, ABC Television, American Greetings, Baidu, CBS Interactive, Disney, Duracell, Facebook, Giphy, Instagram, King Features, Life is Good, Lionsgate, Mars-Wrigley, MuscleTech, Paws Inc, P&G, NBC Universal, New England Patriots, Snapchat, Snap-On Tools, SONY Television Pictures, Twitter, Warner Bros, Wimpy Kid, and many more. Brands interested in offering their own mobile messaging apps, stickers and augmented reality can go to www.baretreemedia.com or contact Bare Tree Media at info@baretreemedia.com.

About Baidu’s Global Business Unit

Baidu’s Global Business Unit (GBU) is focused on bridging the gap between Eastern and Western markets with its consumer and business-focused internet products and services. Baidu GBU’s product portfolio features keyboard apps Simeji and Facemoji Keyboard, content recommendation platform popIn, and ad platform MediaGo, which serves Chinese advertisers looking to reach consumers overseas. Baidu GBU offers its products and services worldwide, including in the United States, Greater China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. For more information, please contact us at: gbu_us@baidu.com

About Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The fourteenth installment in the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball, was published on November 5, 2019, and immediately hit #1 on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestseller lists.

2019 marked the first publication of a spin-off book, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, which was published in April 2019 and also immediately reached #1 on all three national bestseller lists (New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal). ABRAMS also recently released Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Best Friends Box, a box set containing Diary of a Wimpy Kid #1 and Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, and The Wimpy Kid 2020 Wall Calendar.

The series continues to reach new heights globally. This fall, Kinney visited seven countries on his international tour, including France, where he was made an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of the country’s highest cultural honors. Both Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball and Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid ranked #1 in every country in which they were published, including in the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Germany. The series is now published in 64 languages and 76 editions.

More than 200 million copies of the books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series have been sold globally. Published in 2007, the first book was an instant bestseller and has remained on the New York Times bestseller list since its publication and through the release of the fourteenth book, for more than 686 weeks total.

About the Author

Jeff Kinney is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a six-time Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for Favorite Book for his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Jeff has been named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of Time’s 50 Best Websites. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England in 1995. Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An Unlikely Story. For more about Wimpy Kid visit wimpykid.com.


Twitter Emoji Campaigns: A Primer

What is a Twitter Emoji Campaign?

Twitter emoji campaigns are a visually smart way to separate your hashtag from other hashtags. As the name may imply, they aren’t permanent additions to a brand’s main hashtag, but rather are centered around a specific campaign that the brand is putting out.

For a price tag of $1M, Twitter will—for 90 days—attach a picture that you provide to a hashtag of your choice (given it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s IP, of course).

On-the-nose advertisers may remember the tremendously successful #shareacoke campaign, one of the earliest campaigns to combine an emoji with a hashtag. The campaign created waves that led to the immediate introduction of other emoji/hashtag combinations.

The hashtag that launched a thousand twitter emojis

 

But how worth it really is it invest in a Twitter emoji campaign? Since the #shareacoke campaign debuted in 2015, the number of hashtag/emoji campaigns has skyrocketed up; what value do these little emojis hold that are making them mass hits?

The benefits are threefold:

Create Campaign Hype

Having a visual next to your hashtag will instantly create an association in people’s mind, and creates hype around the campaign. It separates your hashtag from other hashtags that may be similar, and even after the campaign ends, people will be left with the imprint reminder of your campaign. Additionally, it allows the user to create an emotional bond to the campaign that a text-only hashtag simply would not be able to achieve. The reason emojis are so popular is that people connect to them emotionally. Is your campaign cool? Funky? Nostalgic? Whimsical? The Twitter emoji’s art style paired with your hashtag will help determine this and will shape how people perceive the campaign overall. Yea, it’s that important.

 

Promotes Interaction Around the Campaign

A hashtag creates a quick avenue for a community to be built around the hashtag, and in turn around your campaign. Once again, the visual element greatly helps people quickly recognize the hashtag, so they’ll be able to click on it and begin to interact with others who are also using that hashtag. This creates a feedback loop where those who are interacting with each other build on the conversation and continue to use the hashtag, keeping it active for others to see in their timelines and become interested in!  

 

It Improves the ‘stopping power' of your Tweet

Twitter users cumulatively generate millions of tweets a day, so the average user is scrolling quickly down an array of hashtags. Internally, Twitter refers to tweets and hashtags that hold people’s attention and pause them in their action of scrolling ‘stopping power’—essentially, it’s a level of retention that determines how effective a campaign is going to be in a user’s mind.

Twitter found that the stopping power of tweets with emojis increased by 10%, and if those tweets were promoted, that figure jumped up to 6x their previous impressions.

 

Case Study: Christopher Robin

For the release of their new movie Christopher Robin, Disney asked BTM to help them with their Twitter campaign, and we were more than happy to oblige! Christopher Robin was a movie steeped in nostalgia, so we definitely wanted to play up that angle and create emojis that felt timeless and resonated emotionally with the user. They actually had five hashtags, one for each of the ‘major” characters in the movie as well as one for the movie title:

Lovingly rendered above are #Pooh, #ItsPiglet, #Eeyore, and #Tigger! All for Disney's #ChristopherRobin! 

This was one of our first Twitter emoji campaigns, as well, so we were very excited and curious to see how it would fare. The thought was that users would have an emotional reaction to the characters’ faces and thus use the hashtags because of it.

Once the hashtags were live, we monitored the hashtags to see how they were doing. Sure enough, almost immediately we began seeing tweets that reflected nostalgia beyond what we even expected. Some users were tweeting specifically for seeing the hashtag characters!

So for your brand’s next ad campaign, consider utilizing the power of Twitter emojis! And if you need someone to help you out, hit us up!