Chinese New Year is the most important festival celebrated by Chinese around the world, especially in Asia. Needless to say, it is also a very important marketing campaign period for brands that have a presence in Asia to have a Chinese New Year campaign that celebrates with their Instagram followers. With so many brands’ marketing campaigns fighting for Instagram users’ attention at the same time, how can any brand stand out among all the brands?

Instagram Augmented Reality effects, more commonly known as Instagram AR filters, is one of the ways brands can use to stand out among the brands to create meaningful and lasting engagement with their Instagram followers! However, just creating any Instagram AR filter wouldn’t cut it out either (especially a catching AR game filter 😛). To help you understand what kind of unique AR ideas will make the cut, here are the 6 best Chinese New Year Instagram AR filters created by brands in Asia!

Read the original article with AR filter videos here

To celebrate the year of the Tiger, CapitaLand collaborated with Popmart to display 3 festive themed Molly dolls around 16 different CapitaLand malls in Singapore. While the purpose of the Molly dolls is to encourage foot traffic to the malls for photo taking, CapitaLand wants to further enhance the engagement by adding Augmented Reality experiences to the Molly dolls. This is where CapitaLand engaged GOWAAA to design & develop 3 different themed lion dance Instagram AR filters that fit the Molly dolls in the malls. To complement the Molly dolls placed in the malls, all the AR design elements are inspired by the elements found in the actual Molly dolls decorations in the malls.

Yummy Molly is one of the series in the Molly doll collections that focuses on yummy snacks. Since it was the Chinese New Year, it’s only natural to complement the Instagram AR filters with all the yummy Chinese New Year goodies together with the cute AR lion dance. In this Yummy GoodieLand Instagram AR filter, users can place the 3D ingot on the floor of the Molly dolls decoration. To release the AR lion trapped inside the ingot, users will have to tap on the ingot through their mobile phone 3 times to see the happy lion bursting out with a celebratory dance! The AR lion also carries a red banner with Chinese New Year greetings that are different for each use. To further encourage interactivity, users can also place an unlimited number of different yummy goodies by tapping on the floor through their mobile phones. It is up to the users on where and how they want the goodies to be placed, which allows each user to have a unique AR experience created by themselves.

Childhood is a series of Molly dolls that focuses on toys that many are familiar with during their childhood time. To complement with Chinese New Year, red banners with new year greetings are also placed alongside the Molly dolls in the mall. In this Instagram AR filter created by GOWAAA, users can ignite the two firecrackers by tapping on them through their mobile phone to reveal new year greetings on the red banners. The greetings are generated randomly for each use, so users get to have a unique experience each time. Fireworks can also be seen in the background featuring the CapitaLand logo after you ignite the firecrackers. Finally, users also get to grow unlimited numbers of cherry blossoms on the floor by tapping through their mobile phones.

This Instagram AR filter is slightly different from the 2 AR effects above as depending on the time which users use the AR filter, the effect will look different. If any user opens the filter between 6 am to 6 pm, the filter will show the day version of the filter with a bright blue sky. And if users open the filter between 6 pm to 6 am, they will see the night version of the filter with dark night sky that can enhance the lantern effect. This filter also allows users to spawn lanterns with Chinese New Year greetings when they tap on the floor through their phone screen.

To encourage the use of these three Instagram AR filters, CapitaLand also places QR codes besides the Molly doll decoration in the16 malls in Singapore and gave out prizes to whoever shared the Instagram AR filter on their Instagram stories during the campaign period. This series of Instagram AR filters are also one of the best Instagram AR filters we like the most!

Henderson Land is a listed property developer in Hong Kong. Through the creative agency, Carbon, GOWAAA were engaged by Henderson Land to create a Chinese New Year Instagram AR experiences that match their Chinese New Year campaign visuals below.

The final Instagram AR filter we created for Henderson Land is an immersive real-world AR experience where the user gets to view the 3D AR tiger from all angles and create their very own unique interaction through blossoming flowers wherever they are by tapping on their phones screen. This Instagram AR filter allow Henderson Land to engage meaningfully with its Instagram users, while also maintaining their campaign visual consistency across all medium.

To promote Fairprice Chinese New Year 2022’s lucky draw, where shoppers who spent at least $30 stand to win 1 of the 8 electric cars, Fairprice engaged GOWAAA to create an engaging and fun 2 players’ face filter game. The concept behind the Instagram filter game is to create a game where Instagram users can play together with their friends, while also tying back to Fairprice, Chinese New Year and also the lucky draw campaign. The final result of the Instagram AR filter is a racing game that starts with users controlling supermarket trolleys through the supermarket aisle. Along the aisle, there are Chinese New Year goodies that users can collect to place in their trolleys by tilting their heads. Once they collected enough goodies, users’ trolley will transfer into a car that ties back to the lucky draw. A unique feature we developed especially for Fairprice is the bumping feature where users can push their opponent’s trolley/car to the side to prevent them from collecting more goodies.

Finding the balance in your life is one of the hardest challenges, but finding a balance in your wealth is not that difficult with the HSBC ingot balancing AR filter game! To promote HSBC’s e-Hong Bao function through the HSBC mobile app, GOWAAA created this auspicious Instagram AR face filter for HSBC’s followers. The game is simple, to keep the ingot balance on your head for 15s to win! A Call-To-Action message to promote the HSBC app will then appear at the end of the game to inform users of the paying feature in the HSBC app. Users can also challenge their friends to see who is the best at balancing the AR ingot on their heads!

While everyone is celebrating Chinese New Year with food and auspicious greetings, UOB instead focuses on raising awareness of the endangered Tiger species in the year of the tiger. This AR filter can be accessed by scanning the QR code which can be found on this year’s UOB’s red packet or through UOB’s Instagram account. Once accessed, users can save the forest, which is where the Tiger lives, by locating the 5 hidden tigers in their surroundings. They will also be prompted to answer questions related to Tiger conservation to educate users through the AR filter. Finally, users can take a selfie with the Tiger with the front camera with Chinese New Year greetings.

Not every Instagram AR filter much be full of interactions and multiple steps to engage with users. If your Instagram followers prefer taking selfies or showing off their OOTD, a simple AR filter like what Charles & Keith created can be more engaging than a complex and interactive filter. The best thing about this filter is its simplicity and also the lack of branding element, which is usually the number 1 obstacle that is preventing users from sharing the Instagram filter on their IG stories. If you are thinking of creating an Instagram AR filter for a brand, always remember that you are creating the filter for your followers to share, not just simply for the brand.

That’s it for the 8 best Chinese New Year Instagram AR filters that we have seen in the year of the Tiger, from Hong Kong to Singapore. If you are looking to create an Instagram AR filter for the coming Chinese New Year, we would advise you to plan early and get the AR studios like us to be involved as early as possible to brainstorm the most creative ideas that can stand out from the rest! Just simply email us at [email protected] to find out more!

8 Best Branded Chinese New Year Instagram AR Filters in Singapore and Hong Kong was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.