Video-sharing platform YouTube introduced Super Stickers, animated graphics that fans can purchase during livestream videos. Sticker packs are available in a variety of languages and in a range of price points, from 99 cents to $50. In addition to the tiered membership subscriptions and Super Chat perks that fans pay to access, Stickers are the latest way YouTube and individual creators are generating income.

Clothing retailer Levi Strauss partnered with Snapchat for a limited-edition Mickey Mouse hat virtual try-on to drive sales at Walt Disney World’s Disney Springs shopping complex. Shoppers can activate the augmented reality lens in Snapchat through a designated snapcode that overlays the hat onto a consumer’s selfie. Once tested, the Disney merchandise is available for purchase in the social app.

American football league The NFL has created one hundred NFL-themed Snapchat AR lenses, marking its 100th season of football. In addition to using the lenses to share creative content, users can also access historical footage of NFL games by scanning the NFL 100 logo with the app. Underneath the library of footage is a countdown clock to the start of the season.

As detailed in our Future Of Retail 2020 report, randomly selected festival goers were air-dropped a pair of Adidas kicks, granted that they wore them for the rest of the event

Margaritaville resort created a tech-savvy water park, Island H2O Live, featuring wristband technology and social media integration to target Gen Z. The wristbands allow water park goers the ability to select music for water rides and even lets parents track their kids. Rides are named after the social media theme from Hashtag Heights and Profile Plunge.

CPG giant Procter & Gamble is embracing ‘lean innovation,’ launching new products quickly and refining them via iterative testing. This allows them to innovate more quickly than their traditional approach, which required extensive consumer research and testing before a new product was introduced to the marketplace. By launching ‘minimum viable products,’ P&G is able to introduce new products to market more quickly and gain real-world feedback, much as a smaller, more nimble DTC brand would approach innovation. One product P&G launched through this method is Charmin’s Forever Roll, a commercial-size roll of toilet paper that would allow consumers to not change the roll as often, which was launched after testing via Facebook and Instagram ads.

Fashion brand Choosy uses data to uncover trends on social media then quickly designs its own products based on the most popular styles and produces the items on demand. Choosy uses a combination of in-house style scouts and AI to analyze social media, looking at the items in posts that their shoppers have tagged with #GetChoosy, as well as celebrity Instagram posts that are gaining traction, in order to identify emerging trends. Choosy then designs items inspired by these trends, producing samples in as few as three days, and makes them available for shoppers to buy through twice-weekly drops on its website. Shoppers have only a few days to purchase the looks, which are produced to order and shipped to customers within two weeks of purchase.

Italian soccer team AS Roma partnered with British chatbot agency We Build Bots to create Botistuta, a chatbot made to answer questions from fans on platform Facebook Messenger, improving customer experience by speeding up response time.

Social media platform Snapchat teamed up with German deodorant brand 8x4 to launch an entirely digital festival. For the festival, 8x4 created a limited-edition animal-themed packaging that featured Snap codes, Snapchat's QR-like tool, which can activate themed Snap lenses on Snapchat's app. Users can upload a Snap with these lenses to receive a personalized pass to the festival, which featured exclusive video content from five influencers.

Retailer Macy's collaborated with social media platform Snapchat, sponsoring the third season of Snapchat's original series The Dead Girls Detective Agency, to promote its back-to-school offerings. The retailer's collection is integrated into the show's events, and viewers can swipe up to shop the selection during unskippable commercial breaks.

Sportswear Adidas and social media platform Snapchat launched a game called Baseball's Next Level via Snapchat app or an online site. The mobile game features MLB athletes wearing limited-edition cleats from the Adidas 8-bit collection, which fans can purchase directly through the game or browse more items by clicking buttons that redirect them to Adidas' or retailer Dick's Sporting Goods' sites. 

For the Chinese Lunar New Year, Swarovski, producer of fine crystal, created a WeChat mini program with a crowdfunding feature, allowing users to select a Swarovski gift for a friend and then enlist their social network for help in purchasing it.

Social media platform Pinterest created gift-finding tools for retailers Macy’s, Lowe’s, Kohl’s, and Etsy to help users discover gift ideas for their loved ones. Users enter who they are shopping for, and the tool delivers a personalized list of gift options from the retailers, with a link to purchase the items directly from the retailers’ sites.

PSFK talks to Elizabeth Shaffer, co-founder of MASSE, to discuss her startup's approach to ecommerce driven by personal recs, and the value of a new AMA series featuring female founders