Diamonds, strawberries and ice, they're not only mentioned in the lyrics to Bruno Mars' hit song "That’s What I Like," but they're now a Facebook camera effect. Taking its cue from Mars' video for the track, the new treatment is the first time the social media platform has based a camera effect around music.
While individual users may not necessarily garner the 276 million views Mars' YouTube video currently has, it is a way for users to have both fun and an interactive experience with Facebook's new camera which launched last month with variety of filters, masks, frames and animation (which some compared to Snapchat)
The timing on the song-based effects couldn't be better. Mars' "That’s What I Like" has held at No. 1 for four weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (Bruno’s first), sold 879,000 digital downloads to date and earned 256.6 million on-demand streams in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music. It’s the third-best selling song of 2017 (as of April 20). The song is also currently No. 1 on the Pop Songs airplay chart, marking Bruno’s eighth No. 1. He ties Justin Timberlake for the most No. 1s by a solo male artist since the chart began in 1992.
The new effect allow fans to use the same doodle animations from Mars' “That’s What I Like” video. According to a Facebook rep, the more "fun" users have and the more they dance, the more the animations appears in the video. Although how an algorithm assess fun and dancing was not explained.
In the video below from Mars’ Facebook page (which has some 57 million followers), Kameron Whalum, a member of The Hooligans (Mars' band), shows off the effect. To have as much fun as Whalum, Mars wannabes just need tap on the camera icon on the top left corner of the Facebook app or swipe right from News Feed to try out the new effect.
“When Bruno Mars created the music video for his hit single “That’s What I Like” we knew that his fans would be excited to make their own version of the video,” Paul Sinclair, Atlantic Records evp, digital strategy & Innovation, told Billboard. “As Facebook recently launched its new Camera effects feature we were thrilled for Bruno to be the first musical artist to work with Facebook and give fans the chance to create their own “That’s What I Like” video. Facebook brought amazing augmented reality tech to the table and the more fun that fans have and the more they dance, the more the effect reacts to them.”
Facebook is offering a suite of creative tools for the new Facebook camera, from simple photo frames to interactive effects and masks using the latest in augmented reality technologies.
The new camera effects platform includes two products: Frames Studio is an online creative editor, now available globally, that allows you to design frames that can be used either as profile picture frames or in the new Facebook camera. AR Studio, now open for beta applications, can be used to create masks, scripted effects, animated frames and other AR technologies that react to movement, the environment or interactions during Live videos.
