This week has been all about augmented reality campaigns. The Ferrero mint brand, Tic Tac, has launched Tic Tac Messenger, which allows consumers to send unique messages through an AR experience on tictacusa.com and launching next month, ‘The Green Planet AR Experience’ will take visitors on an immersive journey into the secret kingdom of plants accompanied by a virtual David Attenborough.

News:

• Shake up your Instagram grid 📷 The platform is testing a new option that would let users re-arrange their photo grid, by putting their previous images in any order, allowing more content control.
• More ‘Stories’ testing on TikTok 📜 TikTok is changing its Stories feature, by integrating TikTok Stories into the main ‘For You’ and ‘Following’ feeds, instead of keeping its Stories element separate.

Startup:

• Brush up on your chess skills 👍 Bryght Labs has created ChessUp – a smart chessboard that helps users learn to play chess. The interactive board has a built in instructor and lessons that are suitable for every skill level.

Insights:

• Both Gen Z and millennial consumers will account for 62% of global social commerce spend by 2025.
• Male usage on Pinterest has been steadily growing, with the platform now reaching 27% of US men aged 25-54.
• Microsoft says it plans to buy major games company Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7bn (£50.57bn).
• Research by Solvid shows that 71% of B2B buyers consume blog content during their buyer’s journey.