The US Government has launched a new push to increase take-up of COVID-19 vaccines among younger people with a series of Snapchat Lenses featuring President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, among others, that share information about the vaccine and how people can get the jab.
As reported by CNN :

"Beginning Wednesday, Snapchat users will be able to access an augmented reality lens that features President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Dr. Anthony Fauci and viral immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett answering questions about the vaccine. [.] The Snapchat experience also includes an augmented reality call from Harris, who shares a link to vaccines.gov - where Snapchat users can find their nearest vaccination site."

The CDC has reported that while US vaccine push yields good results, the take-up rates among people aged 24 and younger are still low, which it needs to boost in order to meet the White House goals set for vaccine adoption.

The fact that the Government has turned to Snapchat for this approach is telling; after all, the company says it now reaches some 90% of Americans aged between 13 and 24, more than Facebook, Instagram and Messenger combined within that age group.

Of course, the Government is also working to raise awareness on TikTok and Instagram as well, but in creating dedicated Snap Lenses, it highlights the significance of Snap's presence in this respect, and the power of its AR tools for communicating information-for utility, beyond simply adding digital dog ears to your selfies.

Research reports from Snapchat have highlighted such and more, with a commissioned data indicating that:

"AR adoption is tracking with the mobile usage boom we saw in the mid 2000s: By 2025, nearly 75% of the global population and almost all smartphone users will be frequent AR users."
That research focuses on using AR for eCommerce purposes, but it also has potential for information sharing and for producing messages that are more likely to engage the younger audiences as demonstrated here:.

And going on these trends, that's just about to grow even bigger, with people becoming ever more accustomed to seeing AR applications and tools and eventually growing into expecting that they'll get more out of AR applications they can interact directly with.
It's an interesting experiment in this regard, and hopefully Snap will also provide data on user engagement with these Lenses, and ideally, how that then relates to subsequent vaccine take-up as a result.

The new Lenses will be live for Snapchat users in the US from this week.