The Task
In order to publicize Carrie Underwood’s new album, Cry Pretty, Universal Music Group wanted to create an engaging and fun experience for fans. Southern Made partnered with Universal Music Group to create an Augmented Reality filter that transformed users face to make it look like they were “Crying Pretty” with glittery tears that looked like Underwood’s album cover. The goal was to create a filter which played her song and could be shared on social media.
The Product
Southern Made was able to create both a Facebook and a Snapchat lens. The apps gave users Carrie Underwood’s glitter tears and played her song in the background. The lens also included a call to action which directed people towards the song on Spotify.
The Impact
On September 14th, 2018, Carrie released her new hit song as well as the Cry Pretty filters. Carrie posted the link to the filter on Facebook as well as a video of herself using it. Carrie’s post sharing the Cry Pretty filter received 140 comments, 217 shares and 147,000 views.
Get your own digital #CryPretty tears on Facebook
Get your own digital #CryPretty glitter tears using the Facebook camera filter on your mobile app. Click here: http://smarturl.it/FBdigitaltears
Posted by Carrie Underwood on Friday, September 14, 2018
She also posted a different video of herself using the filter on Twitter, which had garnered 753 retweets and 6,308 likes. In the Tweet, she shared Southern Made’s custom Snapchat code so that fans could join in and cry pretty, too.
#CryPretty Glitter tears are available on Snapchat! pic.twitter.com/NOA37hlpP7
— Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) September 18, 2018
Immediately following launch of the filters, Carrie’s fans around the world were “Crying Pretty” and listening to her song.
One of her fans even created a collage of people using the Cry Pretty filter and listening to Carrie’s new song. She then shared the fan’s tweet on her Facebook account.
Happy 1 week of Cry Pretty! Love really does win! A bunch of us Carebears teamed up to make a special project to show you just how much we love Cry Pretty! @carrieunderwood we all love and support you so much! Thank you for being you 💞 pic.twitter.com/3jJkgZkWsM
— Kailey Paiva (@sadiep48) September 21, 2018
Even other celebrities joined in on the fun and used the filter, including country star Brad Paisley and the Backstreet Boys’ AJ Mclean.
Brad paisley cried pretty:
Can’t cry pretty? We’ll just see about that. I beg to differ – Carrie Underwood … I can #crypretty
Posted by Brad Paisley on Wednesday, September 19, 2018
AJ Mclean from Backstreet Boys:
Here’s to you and your #CryPrettyChallenge Carrie Underwood Fantastic album! Killin’ it! #CryPretty
Posted by AJ McLean on Thursday, September 20, 2018
In addition to celebrities sharing the filters, Spotify promoted our snapchat lens as well. Our collaboration with Universal Music Group and Spotify helped Carrie’s song outperform industry standards and drove two times the standard click through rates to stream music.
Overall, the Snapchat and Facebook lenses were a huge success and helped Carrie Underwood and Universal Music Group promote her hit new song Cry Pretty. We <3 Carrie Underwood!