With over 400 million active users, Instagram stepped up its advertising game by rolling out an update for 60-second video ads. The Facebook-owned platform made the announcement on Wednesday… and just in time for Super Bowl. Coincidence? Ha.
Up until now, Instagram’s promoted video ads were only 30 seconds. In an email to Social Times, Instagram explains the reasoning behind the update:
“We recognize that advertisers have a variety of creative resources and want to bring more choice to help them reach their business goals.
Instagram allows brands to amplify campaigns and build anticipation heading into key moments in time, such as this weekend’s big game or a highly anticipated movie premiere.”
T-Mobile and Warner Bros. are among the first to use these ads. T-Mobile is using it to show an and extended version of its 30-second Super Bowl spot featuring Drake. Warner Bros. is using its 60-second ad to showcase a trailer for their new film, “How to Be Single”.
This update allows Instagram to take advantage of and combat the shift away from TV and towards digital advertising, while allowing advertisers more creative flexibility and avenues to tell their brand’s story and achieve business goals. By updating the format requirements for images and video on Instagram, advertisers can reuse their creative in the format typically used for television ads.
Although marketers now have the ability to reuse their ads on Instagram, you will have to consider that most of your users only look at posts for a few seconds, and usually with their devices on silent mode. So make sure the first few seconds of the ad are eye-catching enough to prevent being scrolled over.
See T-Mobile’s ad below…
Sources: AdWeek, TechCrunch, SocialTimes
