Dubai: You have already seen the pics and been liking them — now, you get a chance to do the same with ads on Instagram. The hugely popular image sharing app — with a global monthly user base of 400 million and growing — has started to take on advertisements (display as well as videos) across all markets.
In this region, it tied up with a select bunch of launch partners — Souq.com, Starbucks, American Eagle, Visa, Zain, STC — to get the word out. “Any brand who understands who they are visually can bring their story to life on Instagram,” said Amy Cole, Head of Brand Development EMEA, Instagram, now owned by Facebook. “There’s a lot of flexibility in how they might want to do it, and it’s really up to the individual advertiser to decide.”
But indications suggest that in these markets ad videos could fly. “Even with Facebook, the video consumption here has been much higher than the global average,” said Jonathan Labin, Facebook’s regional head of operations. “Clearly, there is a preference for creative videos among the Middle East audience.”
Indeed, even without the ad feature, savvy marketers in the UAE and elsewhere have already been using Instagram to build up followers. This has been particularly apparent among tyro fashion designers who would just put up the date for their new collections to get the kind of feedback they crave. Anything related to fashion seems to travel quite well on Instagram.
Many have also been making their mark as keen bloggers/trend spotters, much like what has been happening in other markets. In fact, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to suggest that Instagram might even have replaced word-of-mouth. With ads now going live, local brands now have more options to play around with.
According to Cole, Instagram — into its fifth year — is not offering “anything special with the launch pricing”. In the US, it had been taking on ads for just over a year now, and added 30 new markets in September and now stepping it on with a global reach. More than 75 per cent of Instagram’s regular users are based outside of the US.
“It’s been a long journey to get here — we have been slow and conservative on purpose,” said Cole. “In the US, there have been 400 campaigns that have run on Instagram and, according to Nielsen, 97 per cent of [these] generated a significant lift in ad recall. And that is 2.8 times higher than the Nielsen norms for ad recall.
“Through this period, we had done a lot of learning and expanded on advertiser options. It will be interesting to see where we go from here.”
Cole — who was Instagram’s sixth employee — wouldn’t have to wait long as far as these markets are concerned —
“We’re seeing a high degree of engagement for our clients on Instagram,” said Phil Adrien, General Manager at Blue Barracuda, the digital agency. “This increase in engagement is due to Instagram becoming one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the region. The ad feature is a much anticipated addition.
“Video has proven to be an incredibly effective way to engage consumers. There are new models of development, production and distribution which allow us to create short, high-quality videos for clients within budget. That videos are costly [on digital media] is a myth we want to dispel.”
