What Happened
After experimenting extensively with various ad products and formats, Instagram is now getting serious about courting TV and online advertisers with more standardized formats and buying options. After lifting the restriction on “non-square posts” last week, Instagram is now allowing brands to run 30-second-long video ads on its platform, extending the previous video runtime of 15 seconds. The company will also start rolling out its ad products to 30 more global markets such as Mexico and India, further expanding its reach.
Moreover, the photo-sharing network is also introducing a new banner-like ad format called Marquee, which, according to Instagram, aims to “help drive mass awareness and expanded reach in a short time-frame”. It will also start offer more customizable “call-to-action” buttons that appeals to a wide array of industries, including travel, entertainment, and retail, with direct response formats that can link outside of Instagram.
What Brands Should Do
As Instagram becomes more ad-friendly, brands should obviously start experiment with the new formats and learn to use each ad product to its advantages. The new Marquee buying option, for example, should be a good fit for for big product launches or movie releases where brands seek big opening sales. Moreover, brands should keep in mind that Instagram is still very much a mobile-first platform, which means that vertical videos are going to look better than the landscape ones.
Source: TechCrunch
