It is on a blog post on Instagram so, you can’t deny them the self-serving endorsement of their own product. Instagram’s ad people are happy with results for Levis and Ben & Jerry’s ads. so far. Who doesn’t love Levis and Ben & Jerry’s, Instagram?
Instagram’s ad service was introduced on November 1 which allowed sponsors to get their message into the home feed on mobile.
According to Instagram:
Ads on Instagram are designed to support brands focused on reaching large audiences with memorable, high quality content.
This is the complete opposite of what you would expect: ads targeted at a small group of losers without two pennies to rub together. So, that’s a win right there for Instagram.
Instagram was also kind enough to share the results of four completed campaigns. The goods news is that all four ads were considered successful. That’s a relief, people.
The marketing people at Levis and Ben & Jerry’s achieved what is call “a high impact with a very low average frequency of ad impressions per user.” That’s fancy talk for they got more people to see the ads without stuffing it down people’s throats as much. That’s good, right?
Levi’s reached 7.4 million people in the U.S. across a nine-day period, targeting people aged 18-34. Ben & Jerry’s reached 9.8 million people in the U.S. over eight days, targeting people aged 18-35.
Then, there was this thing called Ad Recall, with the four campaigns achieving “a 32-point incremental lift in ad recall per campaign for people who were repeatedly exposed to a particular campaign versus control groups.” That means, if you saw the ad enough times compared to a control group that didn’t, you remembered the ad more.
These ads are just Instagram pictures, right?
Then, there’s Awareness. There was “a ten-point incremental lift in brand message awareness per campaign for people who were repeatedly exposed to a particular campaign versus control groups.”
That means, for example, that 17% of people who saw a single ad for Ben & Jerry’s Scotchy Scotch Scotch-flavored ice cream not only became aware of the new flavor, they also associated it with the brand. Because it was called Ben & Jerry’s Scotchy Scotch Scotch-flavored ice cream.
See how that works, dumbass? You remembered that the Ben & Jerry’s Scotchy Scotch Scotch-flavored ice cream was Scotchy Scotch Scotch-flavored ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s as long as you got to see it in your Instagram feed. Needed to be a very clear picture with a very clear image, using the very clear Ben & Jerry’s containers that are in every freezer in every supermarket in every city in the United States, and perhaps the world.
Then there’s this quote from the post:
As we emphasized when introducing ads, our goal is to make them enjoyable, engaging and natural to Instagram, so we started by partnering with brands that were already great members of the community.
Which is marketing speak for: We looked to see who was good at this Instagram thing and we decided to sell them ads instead of letting them get away with stuff for free.
Suck it, Brands! The Emperor has no clothes, and you can pay for the privilege of knowing that.
Hey, I just got a 46-point incremental lift in my ire rating compared to when I hadn’t read the Instagram blog post. Score!
