VICE ran a rival tour inside the British Museum using Instagram AR filters

VICE World News wanted a young, cross-platform audience for hard topics like colonialism, without a budget for a global media push. Dentsu Webchutney's answer, launched in December 2021, was The Unfiltered History Tour: an unofficial interactive guide to ten of the British Museum's most disputed artifacts, built entirely on Instagram's AR filters.

Instead of adding dog ears to selfies, the filter technology was re-engineered to recognize life-sized 3D artifacts in varying daylight. When a visitor scanned, say, the Rosetta Stone or the Parthenon marbles, the filter — triggered by geolocation — visually teleported the object back to its homeland with first-ever visual depictions of the scenes of its removal, while native experts narrated. Users anywhere in the world could take the tour remotely through the campaign site and a ten-episode podcast.

The museum could not stop it: there was no app to ban, no installation on its premises, just visitors using their own phones and a mainstream social feature. The work won three Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2022 (Social & Influencer, Radio & Audio, and Brand Experience & Activation), making Dentsu Webchutney the first Indian agency to win three Grand Prix in a single year, plus 18 pencils at The One Show 2022.

Selfie filters re-engineered to recognize artifacts, not faces

Instagram filters were free, pre-installed and socially native — zero download friction and zero venue cooperation needed.

Geolocation plus image recognition meant the museum's own galleries became the media buy, at no cost.

Narration came from experts in the artifacts' homelands, turning the product itself into the editorial argument.

A remote version (site and podcast) meant the 99.9% who never visit London still got the experience.

You don't need a venue's permission to tell a story inside it — the visitor's own phone is the venue. Repurposing a free, pre-installed tool beats building an app nobody will download.

The campaign swept the 2022 award season: three Cannes Grand Prix — the first hat-trick by an Indian agency — a Grand Prix of the Year at MAD STARS 2022, and 18 pencils at The One Show. Dentsu Webchutney ranked seventh on The One Show's 2022 Global Creative Rankings, and the tour is still cited as the reference case for AR activism in physical spaces.