Snapchat is letting X-Men fans transform into their favorite characters today
Twentieth Century Fox has bought up nine Sponsored Snapchat Lenses to promote the forthcoming "X-Men: Apocalypse" movie.
For 24 hours on May 23, Snapchat users can overlay their selfies with nine X-Men characters: Apocalypse, Beast, Professor X, Cyclops, Mystique, Quicksilver, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Storm.
Here's the Cyclops Lens:
To activate the Lenses function, Snapchat users need to point their smartphone camera towards them, then tap and hold on their face in the app.
The Lens menu then appears, which features Lenses that have been sponsored by advertisers and those created by Snapchat's in-house team.
Snapchat told Business Insider earlier this month that it has run more than 50 Sponsored Lenses campaigns in the seven months since launch and that 30 million Snaps a day are now decorated with Lenses. The ad unit ranges in price between around $100,000 up to $750,000 depending on geography and whether the Lens is tied to a specific holiday or an event.
Here's the X-Men Nightcrawler Lens:
In addition to the Lenses, Twentieth Century Fox has also bought the first ever Snapchat ticketing ad unit.
The video ad, which will appear in the app's Discover content section, allows the use to swipe up to purchase movie theater tickets within the app. The ad began running on May 13 and will continue until May 26, the night before "X-Men: Apocalypse" debuts in theaters.
The ticket ad represents what Snapchat is calling "3Vi" ads, an extension of its "3V" advertising pitch (vertical, video, views,) that allow consumers to interact (that's what the "i" stands for) with the ad unit.