Apple takes aim at Facebook and Snap after loading Clips with Disney and Pixar characters (AAPL, FB, SNAP, DIS)

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Digital Media Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.Apple's nascent video app Clips has received a major upgrade in the form of augmented reality (AR) filters of characters from Pixar and Disney films, TechCrunchreports.The update shows that Apple is stepping up its game against the likes of Facebook and Snap, and other camera and video apps with overlay filter and sticker features.Clips is a video-creation app, with unique editing features, that integrates with social platforms.Launched in April, the app lets iPhone and iPad users edit videos and photos.Users can shoot directly from their camera or select images from their libraries, and add filters, speech bubbles, shapes, and full-screen animated movies, and adjustable captions in 36 languages. When they're done making a video, users can share their creations on messaging and social apps, such as the native iOS Messages app, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo.The move by Apple to add Disney filters into Clips has a handful of business strategy implications:Clips is a bid byApple to maintain the relevance of its camera.Image capture is a major use case for smartphones and is becoming an increasingly important and sticky feature of chat and social apps too. With this in mind, Clips is a tactic by Apple to keep users within its ecosystem and away from the cameras offered in rival apps, especially Facebook's.But it hasn't had much traction in the three months since launch.The app has overa million monthly unique usersto date. That's far behindSnapchat (more than 160 million daily users), Instagram (700 million monthly users), and Facebook(2 billion monthly users), and represents a small fraction of the more than 200 million iPhone devices that Apple sold worldwide in 2016.Disney- and Pixar-based filters will appeal to many of all ages.The film studios own some of the most iconic characters in the world from classics like Dumbo and Cinderella, legendary franchises like Star Wars and Toy Stories, to more contemporary works like Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, among many others. These characters will appeal to broad and diverse audiences, and especially to younger people, which is important to Apple's long-term strategy.Such filters as these give an eye into how Snap will monetize.There probably isn't an advertising angle to the Apple-Disney partnership on Clips. Given the small size of Clips' user base, it's more likely that Apple is paying Disney to license the studio's intellectual property. But a similar partnership, only this time based around advertising, makes complete sense for an app like Snapchat that can serve up a large audience. Indeed, Snapchat'sWorld Lensesfeature, which lets users overlay 3D effects onto the world around them, is an ideal vehicle for branded AR filters.To receive stories like this one directly to your inbox every morning, sign up for the Digital Media Briefing newsletter.Click here to learn more about how you can gain risk-free access today.Join the conversation about this story
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