Bare Tree Media Partners with TikTok to Bring AR to Brands
Boston, MA — June 25, 2020 — Bare Tree Media has been selected by TikTok as a preferred AR (Augmented Reality) design agency partner. As part of the TikTok Branded Effects Partner Program, Bare Tree Media will be assigned to strategize and design TikTok AR effects for brand campaigns.
“With the digital landscape always evolving, we are consistently investing in our interactive competencies such as augmented reality. We are honored to be selected into this partnership to create branded AR experiences to engage audiences within the popular TikTok platform.” — Robert Ferrari, President of Bare Tree Media
Through TikTok’s technology and Bare Tree Media’s in-depth expertise in 2D and 3D AR design, this partnership will help to scale creativity and production of AR effects for brands. This partnership builds on TikTok’s newly launched Branded Scan, which activates certain visual effects after recognizing a flat image as a branded product.
“Branded Effects give brands the opportunity to interact with TikTok users in a way that’s engaging and fun. We’re thrilled to partner with the most creative leaders in 2D and 3D development to bring this playful, immersive experience to our brand partners and the broader TikTok community.” — Melissa Yang, Head of Ecosystem Partnerships, Global Business Solutions at TikTok
About Bare Tree Media
As a pioneer in the digital creative and technology sector, Bare Tree Media enables brands to reach, engage, and entertain consumers through the creation and digital publishing of branded emojis, messaging stickers, GIFs, digital collectibles, metaverse virtual goods, and augmented reality experiences within popular messaging platforms. Interested brands can learn more at www.baretreemedia.com or contact Bare Tree Media at info@baretreemedia.com.
About TikTok
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Their mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok has global offices including Los Angeles, Mountain View, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. For more information, please visit www.tiktok.com.
The Best of Snap Summit 2020
Like most recent events, this year’s Snapchat Summit was adapted virtually; it might seem like a no-brainer for a company whose expertise is in AR and the digital realm—but if anything, this year’s summit has proven Snapchat’s ambition of bridging the gap between between augmented reality, and reality.
If the theme of Snapchat up until now has been “show, don’t tell,” the mantra they’ve adopted moving forward seems to be “experience, don’t show”. What this means for brands is that Snapchat has uniquely positioned itself to allow artists & studios to create unique, branded AR experiences that transcend the digital sphere.
Below we highlighted the features that our AR team is most excited about, as well as how they can be utilized to elevate users’ AR experiences.
Local Lenses
These dynamic lenses use real-life locations (whole areas or specific buildings) to create a unified AR experience that different Snapchatters can share, as long as they’re in the same physical space.
In the example, multiple people are creating a mural of different colors on one shared space using multiple phones. This added experiential element creates a unified experience that exists wholly online but that facilitates physical community.
Photo Courtesy of Snapchat
Photo Courtesy of Snapchat
Snap Scan & Marker Lenses
Scan Partners allows the camera to recognize an item and then attaches it to a specific lens. The examples Snapchat used were a plant-identifer that, when clicked, would provide information on how to care for that plant (including links to buy those items).
When Louis Vuitton’s logo is scanned in real life in Snapchat, a virtual door to their latest showroom opens highlighting classic and current collections in a virtual showroom. Too-Faced marked their ‘Born This Way’ product packaging—so when scanned, users can try it on virtually.
Marker lenses eliminate the need to advertise via Snapcode.
SnapML
SnapML (Machine Learning) lets developers bring their own machine-learning models to power Snap lenses. This allows for the creation of extremely accurate tracking of faces, gestures, feet, and even landmarks such as buildings.
You can see the practical application that Wannaby has used: they created a try-it-on filter that lets users see their newest shoe in a variety of colors (yes, that shoe is AR, not real).
In short, SnapML has destroyed many creative boundaries that previously existed—the new “brand experience” is limited (mostly) by what you can imagine .vs. by technology.
Photo Courtesy of Snapchat
Photo Courtesy of Snapchat
Places
Snapchat is making it easier than ever to integrate call-to-actions within their app and lenses. One example of this is “Places”, which lead to an outside-Snap call to action such as ordering a physical product online, whether it’s that new lipstick or food from their favorite delivery spot! This would be especially crucial for smaller businesses that need to receive local support.
In the example, users can search their favorite restaurants on Snapchat’s in-app map feature. From this search, Snapchatters will have access to price point, reviews, hours, contact information, directions, and nearby community snaps.
Integration SnapKits
If your brand has an existing app, Snapchat will now let you integrate their technology with it in order to create a new layer of interaction with your fans. This is more abstract in thought but can be applicable to any number of brands across any discipline.
Rally Road is an app that is meant for classic car investments but has integrated Snapchat’s CreativeKit to let users purchase shares in rare items and share them with their friends in a unique AR environment.
There are numerous types of kits available, each with their own unique perks:
- AdKit – makes monetizing apps easy with SnapAds
- CreativeKit – allows apps to bring real-time data into Snapchat
- CameraKit – brings the power os Snapchat camera to your apps
Photo Courtesy of Snapchat
Where do I start?
If you’re interested leveraging Snapchat for any of the above uses, a qualified creative studio is your best bet, since we know the ins-and-outs of not only best creative practices to create an attractive filter but can also help determine which strategy is the way to go.
We here at Bare Tree Media would love to collaborate with any artist, strategist, or brand who’s just as pumped about these new Snapchat features as we are! You can take a look to see the lenses we’ve already created or contact us below for more information.
How to Bring Some Fun to Your Video Calls
As we adjust to a new normal, video conference calls have become the number one way to get some quality face time with co-workers, clients, and loved ones. If you’ve been like us, you’ve been spending a majority of the time in these calls and want to break up the monotony with a bit fun! Using Snapchat’s desktop app Snap Camera or simple videos, you can add exciting backgrounds and AR effects to your video feed.
How to Add Videos to Zoom
Adding fun videos to Zoom calls is super easy! Once you are in a Zoom Meeting, in the bottom left corner of the window, you will see a ‘Start Video’ button. Click on the up arrow to the right of the icon and select ‘Choose Virtual Background.’
This will bring you to your video settings within Zoom. You will see five default videos from Zoom that you can try out. But if you want something special hit that plus button to the right and choose ‘Add Video.’ A finder window will open up where you can navigate to any mp4 video file you have on your computer.
And that’s it! You should now have a fun video playing in the background!
If you’d like to use our enchanted forest video background you can download it right below by hitting the download button. Then right click on the video, hit ‘Save Video As,’ and choose where you would like to save the video onto your computer.
How to Use AR Lenses
If you’d like to get a little fancier, you can use Snap Camera to add a wide variety of AR effects to some of the most popular video call apps including Google Hangouts, Skype, Twitch and more! Unfortunately Snap Camera doesn’t currently work on Zoom with the latest macOS (though they are working to fix this!) but if you are on a Windows computer you can follow the instructions below for Zoom as well.
- Install Snap Camera: You can download Snap Camera to your computer here. Once it downloads, double click and follow the instructions to install the application. Snap Camera will automatically open and show a wide range of suggested lenses. Click on any effect to try it out!
- Update your Video Settings: Once you have Snap Camera setup, open up your video call app of choice and go to the video settings. There you should see a dropdown to select which webcam you would like to use and select ‘Snap Camera’. If you don’t see ‘Snap Camera’ listed you may need to restart both applications or your computer for Snap Camera to appear on the list of options.
- Choose & Have Fun: After Snap Camera is selected as the video source, you can pick any AR effect you would like within Snap Camera and it will update in your video call. Try out our enchanted forest effect by searching ‘Enchanted Forest’ or search ‘Bare Tree Media’ to see all of our Snapchat effects!
Interested in having your own custom AR effect or video background created? Reach out to our team!
Bare Tree Media is a full-service creative studio and digital publisher creating super slick, mobile-facing content! We would love to bring your brand’s ideas to life through digital animation and AR. Check out our Augmented Reality page to see branded experiences we created for TikTok, Snapchat, & Instagram.
#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.
Sending hugs from Tod and Sal, a sticker duo created by former BTM Sprout, Amy!
If you are an artist and interested in taking part, please email info@baretreemedia.com with the subject line ‘#StickingTogether.’
Wimpy Kid Introduces Augmented Reality and Sticker Keyboards
Boston, MA – January 24, 2020 – Massachusetts-based companies Wimpy Kid, Inc. and Bare Tree Media expanded their digital partnership with the introduction of augmented reality social media effects and a global expansion of their stickers within keyboard mobile applications.
“I love 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!” — Jeff Kinney, Author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
To kick off 2020, Bare Tree Media designed and released three augmented reality effects themed around 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 Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
“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.” — Robert Ferrari, President of Bare Tree Media
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.
“We are delighted to kick off 2020 by launching these stickers with Bare Tree Media and Wimpy Kid, Inc. 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.” — Josh Fenn, Senior Marketing Manager at Baidu
About Bare Tree Media
As a pioneer in the digital creative and technology sector, Bare Tree Media enables brands to reach, engage, and entertain consumers through the creation and digital publishing of branded emojis, messaging stickers, GIFs, digital collectibles, metaverse virtual goods, and augmented reality experiences within popular messaging platforms. Interested brands can learn more at www.baretreemedia.com or contact Bare Tree Media at info@baretreemedia.com.
About “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”
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 remained on the New York Times bestseller list since its publication and through the release of the fourteenth book. This is more than 686 weeks total!
Published on November 5, 2019, the fourteenth installment in the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball, immediately hit #1 on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestseller lists.
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.
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?
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!
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:
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!
How We Play a Role
Our experienced team of designers work with brands to personalize their Twitter campaigns. Check out our “Branded Hashtags” page for examples of our work. Let us help your brand pack a powerful punch!
We Can GIF It
Be A Trendsetter, not a Follower
Keeping up with the trends in today's society is the priority for brands who adhere to the schema of remaining relevant. They need to understand what conversations their consumers are having, what’s important to them, and prove that they are also a part of this conversation.
What if I told you that’s the wrong approach to take?
Brands need to start the trend, not catch up to it. Trying to appeal to an audience using memes won't win you any brownie points with consumers—it’s too transparent for the hyper-jaded consumer of today and rings so hollow it may actually push your audience away. They are too aware of the 'corporate' image, and view the attempt like an adult trying, embarrassingly, to relate to youth using what they perceive as 'the new culture' but in inexperienced, and incorrect, ways.
For brands who want to proactively expand their audience, the solution is a little different: to insert themselves into their consumer’s popular culture and become the medium through which the conversation is had in the first place. And in 2018, the form of discourse is memes, and specifically memes through GIFs.
There is one clear champion of GIFs: you might have heard of them, but in case you haven’t it’s a huge meme depository called GIPHY. It’s a free, online platform that lets users upload their GIF content and access this content through a whole host of platforms including: Facebook Messenger, Instagram, (and most recently, Instagram DMs), Snapchat, Twitter, Viber, Slack, Discord, Outlook, and seriously, there’s MORE.
What does this mean? It means that putting your content on GIPHY makes your content as ubiquitous as GIFs have become across the internet. Given that, it’s amazing that it’s remained fairly underutilized by brands has a whole.
The Way Forward
Maintaining a GIPHY channel is great for brands who have high or low recognition alike. After creating the GIF content, they just need to be uploaded and tagged appropriately. From there, the tags will do all the work and users will find and spread the GIFs (literally) everywhere. It’s free marketing, but more than that, it’s the creation of a culture around the brand.
If brands are worried about maintaining the channel themselves, or are unsure about how to go about optimizing search results, fear not! There are companies who will help you create and manage your GIPHY channel (like us!) Although it will come at a price, the recognition that stands to be gained and the opportunity to insert your brand into the cultural lexicon is worth the hassle.
In fact, in this sense GIPHY can be even more advantageous to brands who aren’t well known. What better way to build your brand than by letting it expand organically through conversations that consumers are having? You can tailor the image you want by the content you upload and then wait to see how your consumers use the content you’ve created.
So while other brands struggle to remain a part of the conversation, those brands on the social beat will recognize the importance of being a part of the language spoken.
Pushing your Headlines into the Spotlight
The Challenge
It’s every brand’s dream to stand out amongst the crowd, and every marketer’s goal to help their brand achieve that dream.
In today’s world of exponential technological breakthroughs, marketing strategy has by necessity been evolving to complement—the Internet is the newest frontier for marketers looking to expand their brand. However, changes in marketing aren’t always revolutionary; sometimes, even little changes have a large impact on a brand’s identity and tone, and thus, the relationship with their consumers.
Pop-up and targeted ads, a long stalwart of advertising and marketing, have become taboo so companies are now looking to the next best strategy. People don’t want to be sold things anymore; in the new, transparent age, they’re looking for genuine connection.
The Solution
What does it take to connect to an audience? The answer may be simpler than you think:
Emojis!!! 😁😂❤️🌮🔥👍🤠
Emojis are ubiquitous in today’s world; which means there’s one for any demographic you’re looking for. They come in different skin tones, in a huge amount of objects, places, and even in travel symbols and signs. They add personality to otherwise-bland text and catch the attention of the community your brand is trying to appeal to because they’re connecting to the image on some emotional level.
Which one of these catches your attention the most?
Emojis are also the perfect way to show HOW you are saying something; emojis can be used ironically and sarcastically, which in itself helps frame the brand’s relationship with their consumers: are they cool and edgy? Professional? Fun? There’s an emoji for that! There is no genre barrier: apps like CNNMoney have fully adopted emojis, with over 50% of their push notifications including at least one. In general, companies who’ve been early on the trend and incorporated emojis into their notification headlines have already received tangible, data-driven results. According to a study conducted by the entertainment platform LeanPlum, consumers open push notifications with emojis 264% more often than those without. Email subject lines that include emojis are opened 66% more, and applications that incorporate emojis receive a 26% lower uninstall rate.
Which one of these jumps out at you?
In short, emojis drive engagement. There is no aspect of a company’s goals that can’t be improved by adding a little emotion to help their consumers connect to them on an emotional level; whether the goal is to get hits on a webpage or sell a product, emojis can unify and enlarge your audience and their retention of your content.
The Takeaway
Emojis aren’t going anywhere; Twitter emoji campaigns, which allow brands to publish an image in tandem with their hashtag, have caught fire and are only picking up traction. Platforms like Slack allow users to upload their own, specific emojis so people can message in-jokes to each other. Emoji use and variance is evolving, and the farsighted brand will take measures to ensure that in a world where brands emote, they aren’t seen as ❄️☠️💤.
Give 'em the Ol' Razzle Dazzle: Digital Painting Applications in Messaging Stickers
Obi here!
As a digital illustrator at BTM my job requires me to cover everything from illustrating and creating images from scratch, to working on and building off of already existing assets.
Because of this, I have to be able to work in a variety of different styles, especially when it comes to working with already existing assets. An instance of this is BTM’s messaging stickers for Zagtoon’s Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.
To start this project BTM was supplied with a variety of assets, which included a mix of expertly rendered illustrations of Ladybug and Chat Noir, the two main characters from the show, and images of the 3D models used in the show. While the 3D models were fine, they were also distinctly different from the finished illustrations. When building a sticker pack keeping a consistent art style across the board is key. As the digital illustrator on the project it is my job to give em’ the ol’ razzle dazzle.
The first step in this process is addressing why some of the art looks different than others. The main difference is the hair, eyes, lighting and the places where the limbs got cut out of frame.
Next comes roughing out the general form over the 3d model, this includes adding parts that got cutout of frame and taking away the hard edges of the hair, so that it can be painted back to look less like a hard plastic model and more like actual hair.
After the general form has been established the forms and textures get refined and detailed. This stage includes painting her hair, eyes, touching up various parts of her face and further refining the areas of her figure were extended.
With some of the details, such as the mesh texturing on Ladybug’s body suit, it was faster to extract the pattern from other areas of her suit, build the flat texture in another document, and map it to the areas that required it.
With the form and details rendered, it’s time for lighting. With various blend modes and opacity layers I simulated more dynamic, colored lighting, which further pushed the contrast and helped to match the style of illustration used in the finished assets BTM received.
To finish the edits, a final rendering of any small details and a layer of low level noise to unify the piece are applied.
Voila! C’est Ladybug!
Building a Better Bee Beard
Building a Better Bee Beard
I’m Lahna 🤠
I’m primarily an AR lens programmer here at BTM, but I also help out with illustrations.
The decline in honey bee health is a very important issue all around the world. So for National Honey Bee Day we wanted to contribute our skills as a company to help the honey bee gain more attention.
The goal was to create Snapchat augmented reality lens that gave you a beard made of bees that flew off when you shook your head. This concept was an attempt to debunk the idea that a swarm of honey bees is a dangerous entity. Swarming honey bees are when they are most calm and passive since they have no home to defend. Which is why beekeepers have no fear when they show off a beard of bees! Also, it looks cool.
We thought of two ways we could go about it:
- Position so many bee objects around the face that it looks like they have conglomerated there into a natural beard shape
- Create a static, textured mass that resembled a beard and then cover it in actual moving bees to save on tri count.
We decided to start with plan A just so we could work on the head-shaking and bee navigation while our technical artist expertly modeled, rigged, and animated a bee for us to work with. We used spheres of the approximate size of what the bee object would be until she was finished.
We whipped up a script to detect when a user was shaking their head and partnered it up with a system that monitored all bees and their states. This triggered random bees to fly off the face every time the user shook their head a certain number of times.
I was then sent the bee proxy to more properly craft the shape of the beard until the full textures and animations were complete. Substituting them back in took a long time because of a weakness of Snapchat’s AR engine that we didn’t understand — but would come to terms with later.
In order for the bees to appear more realistic when they are flying, we wanted to add a little flying loop as the come back to the face. So, we added a looping state in there as well.
Eventually, the animations were finished and it was time to replace all proxy bees with proper bee objects. This took an even longer time and we didn’t yet know why; each bee was just taking forever to select.
After trying to put a certain amount of bees on the face, the engine kept crashing. To the point where the project was un-openable.
We had well exceeded the suggested tri count for the engine, but it hadn’t stopped anything before. Other lenses were ten times over the allowed tris but worked fine.
We realized, however, the engine was worse when it came to an overload of the number of objects in the scene hierarchy. The engine could select an object on its own, but an object with dozens of children took a very long time to select…and because of the nature of the engine each imported bee was broken up joint by joint into their own objects.
So it was time for plan B. We made up a beard-shaped object but no matter how hard we tweaked it it just couldn’t look right because the surface needed to be covered in bees for it to be believable anyway. We remade the scene from scratch, using the old scripts. There were three kinds of bee objects:
- Static bees with very few tris, to make up the bulk of the beard
- Idly animating bees that never leave the face
- Bees with animations built in that let them take off, fly, and land
This set of solutions worked surprisingly well! And after that, we put an overlay filter and some sparkles on it and called it a day!
Check out the finished result for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/beardofbees