Starbucks Holiday AR Lands On Instagram Today

The Holidays are just around the corner and Starbucks festive AR landed on Instagram today, bringing to life four limited edition cup designs, available at your favorite coffee shop.

For many Starbucks aficionados, sharing their holiday-themed cups on social media not only is a tradition, it marks the beginning of the festive season. Adding AR to add a new layer of fun and interactivity seems like a great decision.

To join the fun, open Instagram on your phone, navigate to the Starbucks profile, and click on the effect gallery (that’s the third button on the left, right above the grid photos). Then select the AR effect and click on “try it” in the bottom left corner to open your camera. The rest is up to you: point the camera at one of the four limited edition Starbucks cups and “watch the magic unfold” before your eyes.

.@Starbucks is ready for the Holidays with a new AR effect available on Instagram. Check it out with one the four limited edition cups this winter!

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The Starbucks holiday-themed AR effect was built using Facebook’s Spark AR platform, including new computer vision technology that lets the camera identify which of the four cups it’s looking at to trigger the correct effect. Target tracking lets the camera track the cup’s location within its field of view and anchor the AR content onto it.