Facebook and Warner Music Partner on AR Collaboration with David Guetta and Sia

acebook has partnered with Warner Music to create an Augmented Reality effect prior to the launch of David Guetta and Sia’s new single, Let’s Love. 

The AR experience was available on Facebook and Instagram from September 9, which gives fans a 20 second preview of the new single by deconstructing the song in order to put it back together, creating a music experience which makes the user a producer. The AR experience has been released ahead of the single, making fans work hard to unlock the final version before the track is released today. 

Created by Facebook’s Creative Shop in partnership with UNIT9, a production company who operates globally with offices in London, Los Angeles, New York, Florence, Berlin and Poland. The AR experience was deployed with Facebook’s AR platform, Spark AR. The AR feature will be available to users of the app around the world and consists of four musical stem groups which act as triggers, the first, plays as a default when the AR effect opens, while the other three are triggered through facial gestures. 

Users must trigger the sound layers within the experience at the right time to play the song as it is intended to be heard. Users were encouraged to share their attempts at making the right track with David Guetta on social media, before the launch today using the #Musicchallenge, for him to repost the best versions.

Global Head of Creative Shop at Facebook, Caitlin Ryan, stated: 

“At Facebook, we’ve been focused on bringing music into all of the places people are sharing and connecting on our platforms. Every month, hundreds of millions of people interact with AR across Facebook and it is becoming a popular medium for connecting with friends and communities, building shared experiences and expressing oneself.” 

Ryan continued:

“With our free, open platform, Spark AR, anyone can create and publish AR effects on Facebook and Instagram. The platform is releasing new features to push users to experiment with it, which will open up a new type of experience in AR for users. We hope that pioneering in this field with world-famous artists, like David Guetta and Sia, provides inspiration for further experimentation and new experiences on the platform.”

The interactive and innovative experience is aimed to demonstrate how people can express themselves creatively with AR and music, and as an added bonus provides a blueprint of a preview format for single launches in the music industry.  

Facebook has had several recent musical collaborations, including Taylor Swift’s teaser to release Me!, Mark Ronson and King Princess’ AR music video for Pieces Of Us, Haim’s AR vinyl cover and Liam Payne’s latest AR effect for his single Stack it Up. 

David Guetta and Sia’s new single was recorded and produced during the lockdown, earlier in the year, Guetta raised over $1.5 million for Covid-19 relief with his United At Home charity livestream events on Facebook, which had over 50 million combined viewers.