Snap India Announces ‘Lens on the Year’

Every day, people use Snapchat to express themselves, live in the moment, and learn about the world around them — and 2021 was no different. Lenses inspire our community, help them connect with their closest friends, and discover endless possibilities through our Camera. 

Over the years, we’ve taken some of the most innovative technologies and applied them to AR. Concepts that many consider futuristic are actually being used by millions of Snapchatters each day, built by our thriving community of AR experts. Below are a list of lenses 

Top Cultural Moments + Festivals

Lenses offer a unique window into the year’s cultural moments, trends, and how our community celebrates all the festivals in India. These lenses were everyone’s favourite in 2021.

1. Happy Diwali! by Snap: Diwali 2021, festival of lights, theme was ‘Share your Light’ and with this Lens a Snapchatter can share a Diya with their friends and family. The Lens recognises your hand and places a lit Diya, an Indian oil lamp, on your palm for you to share your wishes and light. This popular Diwali Lens gained 200+  million impressions in India. But also, Diwali celebrations started a few weeks before Diwali itself with our community resonating with the different coloured Navratri Lens each day of the 9 day festival. And to start the Diwali countdown, Snapchatters started festive season celebrations and greetings with Dussehra and Durga Puja AR Lenses.
2. Happy Rasksha Bandhan! by Snap: The festival of Raksha Bandhan celebrates the sibling bond of love and protection. With this Lens, which leverages wrist recognition tech, you can virtually tie a rakhi on your wrist and share your message with your siblings or best friends.
3. Sparkling Hand (Holi) by Snap: Holi - or the festival of colours - is typically celebrated by putting different Holi colours on friends and family at Holi Parties. With COVID restrictions, people could not celebrate together, but these Lenses enabled Snapchatters to throw colours with hand recognition technology, or show their before and after Holi Looks adorned with different Holi Colours. 
4. My Friend Is (Friendship Day) by Snap: Friendship Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of August in India. Using this Lens, Snapchatters can share fun characteristics about their friends. For example, you nod your head if you think your friend is serious or funny and can share that characteristic with them. 
5. Gudi Padwa, Onam, Makar Sankranti by Snap: Lenses for regional holidays and festivals were also popular on Snap. For festivals like Gudi Padwa in the West users could share their New Year greeting using Gudi Padwa themed AR while users in the South celebrated Onam with Lenses showcasing the traditional Sandhya served on the holiday. Several other holidays like Eid, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Rath Yatra were celebrated using the popular AR Lenses

Top Viral Lenses: Pulse of what is trending on Snap in India. Indian traditional jewelry or gold jewelry lenses with sunglasses were popular throughout the year in India. While several of the ‘Learn Language’ lenses were used on relevant days like ‘Marathi Day’ or ‘Madras Day’

1. Indian Traditional Jewelry: Replicating a traditional look of gold jewelry, the lens lets you try on gold necklaces, earring jhumkas, nose rings, and more.
2. Gold Chains: Popular to try the sunglasses with the excess gold chains look, this lens would also let you try on a mustache with a simple tap on the lens.
3. Learn Language by Snap: To celebrate the diversity of India, on different state holiday’s we released “Learn [Language]” Lenses. We collaborated with a Indian Subcontinent Lens Creator - Atit Kharel who used Machine Learning to identify objects in the Lens and highlight their local language translation
4. 3D Cartoon by Snap: From celebrities to pets, the world simply couldn’t — and wouldn’t — stop turning themselves into a cartoon character. The Lens has been viewed over 7 billion times! 

Best New + Unique Creative Tools

1. India Gate Landmarker by Snap: For India’s 75th Independence Day, we launched a Marker tech Lens at India Gate in New Delhi. When you point your Snapchat app to Scan the India Gate, you’ll see the Indian National Flag through the India Gate, as well as  lashes of India flag colours.
2. Teeth Lens by Snap: We partnered with The Kapil Sharma Show, one of the top comedy shows in India on Television. For his sets, Kapil Sharma, wanted to create a new character to interview his show guests (A list Indian Celebrities) using the Snapchat Teeth Lens. He launched a character called CheduLal that was televised in multiple Kapil Sharma Show episodes
3. Mood Octopus Lens: This lens was designed by Pradeepa Anandhi, winner of International Women’s Day Lensathon, to help people express their mood without saying a word. The lens is Inspired by reversible octopus toys, where people swap the colour of Octopus toy to express their mood without saying anything.This lens captures your expression and automatically changes the colour of your physical outfit (Garment) & octopus (toy) in relation to your mood. 

Branded Lenses We Loved

1. Feels like ISHQ by Netflix: Love Prediction’ lens, following the plot of the series, appears in the form of a mystical crystal ball predicting unusual places and situations where Snapchatters can find love.
2. Mix It Up by Perfetti: As the first AR body tracking Lens in India, this Lens Lens lets Snapchatters capture themselves swapping the bottom half of their bodies with hilarious alternatives.
3. Star Sports by Snap: This Lens uses ‘Upper Body Skin Segmentation’ and ‘Volume Detection’ technology that detect how loudly the Snapchatter is cheering for the Indian team. The volume triggers the skin to turn blue!
4. DilFilmySunoFilmy by Spotify: Spotify’s first Snapchat Lens, Snapchatters can enter the portal that appears and choose from 3 Spotify playlist genres that they can virtually walk into to get a glimpse of.

With over 6 billion plays per day on average, Lenses offer a unique window into the year’s cultural moments, achievements in AR innovation, and trends that made a lasting impact. Join us as we celebrate our community and the 2021 Lenses that revolutionized the way Snapchatters create, explore, learn, and play.