Social Rocket
Snapchat and HBO Max are launching an extensive AR campaign around the new HBO series Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Planned are twelve AR lenses, chat wallpapers, Bitmoji fashion, a special app icon and further AR experiences that will be rolled out throughout the season.
According to Snap, the series is set to premiere exclusively on HBO Max at Christmas 2026. For marketers, the partnership is particularly interesting because it shows how far platform campaigns now go beyond classic ads.
Twelve AR lenses instead of a single launch format
Snapchat wants to extend the campaign across the entire season. The twelve AR lenses are meant to pick up different elements of the Harry Potter world and encourage fans to create content themselves and share it with friends.
Thematic chat wallpapers and Bitmoji clothing are also planned. The campaign thus deliberately moves into areas that users not only consume but use in their own profiles and in private conversations.
This is exactly what sets such activations apart from classic video or display ads: the brand becomes part of recurring usage behaviour.
Why Snapchat is betting on AR for entertainment brands
Snapchat has positioned augmented reality as a core part of its advertising and brand strategy for years. According to Snap, the platform reaches 946 million monthly active users worldwide; 215 million Snapchat users consume sports content every month on average. The company also relies heavily on lenses and immersive formats for entertainment partnerships.
The Harry Potter campaign therefore fits into a series of larger partnerships. Over the summer, Snapchat had already implemented a live AR project with HBO Max for House of the Dragon at Times Square.
For brands, the practical point is not that every campaign needs twelve lenses. What matters is the idea of breaking a release down into several small occasions for interaction, rather than promoting just a single launch post or trailer.
What social media teams can take away
The activation shows three reusable patterns:
- Serial campaigns instead of a one-off launch: new formats appear throughout the season.
- Usable brand assets: wallpapers, Bitmoji outfits and lenses are not just advertising but components of app use.
- Private communication as a touchpoint: chat wallpapers bring the campaign into conversations between friends, not just into public feeds.
This is especially relevant because social marketing is increasingly difficult to evaluate on impressions alone. At the same time, Snapchat is trying to improve how campaigns are measured with its Unified Attribution for app advertisers.
The wider creator and social market is also changing. Brands are currently scrutinising creator pricing and the measurability of influencer campaigns more closely. Interactive platform formats can therefore be interesting when a campaign should generate not just reach but actual usage and repetition.
If you see Snapchat as a creator channel, you will also find in our overview how Snapchat and other platforms pay creators 2026 pay.
No proof of campaign success
Snap and HBO Max have not yet published performance data for the Harry Potter activations. The number of lenses and the size of the partnership therefore say nothing yet about how many users actually take part or whether the campaign generates HBO Max subscriptions.
The campaign is nevertheless a good example of where platform marketing is heading: away from the single ad unit and towards a series of formats that are integrated as deeply as possible into the respective platform.