Instagram has over 1 billion monthly users, out of which over 928 million people were considered as the potential audience.
The above stats indicate the extensive scope offered by the famous photo & video sharing platform to the brands. Social media marketers must consider the Instagram ads as their key weapon in building brand reputation besides developing some dope marketing campaigns.
As we discuss ads, there are multiple ways to promote a cause, case, or consequence but Instagram video promotions are visibly taking over the market.
Why wouldn’t they? When:
- 53% of Instagram users follow their favorite brand on the site
- the engagement rates on Instagram are 10x higher than Facebook and 84x than twitter
- it is growing 5x quickly compared to other social media platforms
- advertisers can reach up to 52.9 million youth audience
- videos on Instagram can get over 21% more interaction than image counterparts
Moreover, Instagram has a potential advertising reach of over 849.3 million users where 60% of people claimed to have discovered products on it.
Instagram video marketing has gathered enormous popularity among the top 100 brands that have already received great engagement. Apparently they have 25 million business profiles & more than 2 million monthly advertisers.
Also Read – 5 Best Beauty & Skincare Brands on Instagram to Follow Right Now
Videos on Instagram can be categorized under four major groups according to the kind of content, placement, duration, and existence. They are:
- Infeed video post – it is the basic video content posted on Instagram with a description or explanation to complement the content. These in feed video posts have edit options and can be posted anytime in any manner. Users can tag any other profile, add location, and filters to the post. It stays on the wall until deleted on purpose. Initially, Instagram allowed upload of video content up to 15 seconds but now the duration has been extended to 60 seconds.
- Instagram stories – as brands post an average of 2.5 stories a week, one-third of the most viewed video stories belong to businesses. Currently, Instagram stories can be considered as the most credible and high reaching video content medium on the social media site.
The rise of vertical video consumption demand in digital markets has given the push to this temporary kind of video share through the smartphone. It appears on the top bar of respective feed and disappears automatically after 24 hours if not deleted purposefully.
It plays in an order that is from the oldest upload to the newest which viewers can navigate by tapping on corners of the screen. Instagram stories cannot be commented on or liked but reactions via DMs and share options are available.
However, advertiser/host user can adjust who can see or share their stories. Most of the time brands provide a call to action, landing page links, and swipe up to follow features on these interactive video content. Users can add mentions, tags, and polls to make the stories more interactive for the viewers.
- IGTV – aka Instagram television is a feature to support Instagram video content that crosses the duration of 1 minute and cannot be completely posted on feed. It is also available as a standalone application where long-form videos are posted but users on Instagram can also access the video-sharing format.
IGTV uploads through mobile phones can be a maximum of 15 minutes duration while uploads from the web can be of an hour-long content. Brands can leverage IGTV as it combines the best of two both worlds i.e. YouTube and Instagram to enhance brand presence, conversions, revenues, and network.
- Livestream – This Instagram feature allows brands to connect with the audience in real-time. While a user hosts a live video broadcast, an icon blinks to indicate the ongoing live that others can join and comment, like to interact with the host.
Recently the Livestream also got the option of featuring more than one host.
Its 2020 and people clearly prefer video content over images or any other media for various purposes. Videos are easy, convenient, and are more engaging due to which top brand shave switched to developing creative video ads to obtain, retain, and expand consumer base.
Comparatively, Instagram video content has proved to be more acceptable and effective in creating a lasting impact on the audience. It is more convincing as well as makes the brand appear trustworthy besides being highly capable.
Let us discuss a few examples related to brands on Instagram who have tried hands-on Instagram video features to acquire customers & business success globally.
Innovative Instagram Video Marketing campaigns from India
One could literally sniff the steaming basmati rice grains, half orang” ed” of the biryani through their smartphone. As the video clip played in the stories, viewers could relate with the stretching cheese on the pizza as well as imagine the silky melting texture of the mango smoothie in it. Swiggy was one of the firsts in India to use ads in Instagram stories.
Swiggy looked for opportunities to expand their customer base and reach out to new markets therefore, tried few performance tests on Instagram. The results being fairly encouraging, they went ahead with attention-grabbing graphics, gifs, visuals along with convincing content copies to advertise their features on the social media platform.
Instagram video marketing benefitted them by increasing the app installs by 17% than other platforms comparatively. This reduced the cost per install by 30% which is great.
- Swiggy- #SwiggyGeetSangEat
Again making the best use of Instagram Stories and the many options that comes with this content format. Swiggy gathered several viral UGC videos, repackaged them uploaded them with Instagram music.
It asked its customers and restaurant partners to make music videos using IG Music to express their emotions related to food & hunger with hashtag #SwiggyGeetSangEat. Food bloggers, Swiggy customers, and video enthusiasts used the opportunity to express themselves and few of them got featured on the official Instagram account of Swiggy. This campaign involved a mix of UGC with influencer marketing to spread brand awareness.
This was a highly engaging, entertaining, and creative Instagram video marketing campaign by the brand in India which not just made it go viral but also made the customers feel valued.
The leading skin, hair, and make-up brand L’Oreal Paris launched its signature limited-edition makeup collection through Instagram ads only.
The brand collaborated with the Indian fashion designing maestro Sabyasachi Mukherjee to create a space for all fashion and lifestyle enthusiasts on the platform.
This high valued Makeup brand realized the potential of this social media platform that has a high buying intent audience and decided upon running their ads on it to create a visual appeal amongst its audience.
As per stats, Instagram has a huge number of active female users who preferred the following fashion and makeup accounts. Moreover, Sabyasachi himself had over 3 million followers with a verified account that made the campaign run more smoothly with the best results.
The brand made sure they utilized the maximum features to advertise their series of products hence, there were a series of clips in stories and Infeed posts in the carousel format.
The campaign was a success where L’Oreal Paris managed to get a 20-point lift in purchase intent among women aged 35-44, 13-point lift in brand awareness between women aged 25-34. They also received a 9-point life in ad recall.
One of India’s largest dining out platform, Dineout is a Times internet limited product now. It tried and tested Instagram-only marketing campaigns to increase the app installs. The brand created and optimized creatives to fit the Instagram stories and feed format. These creatives had a simple layout, catchy offer highlights to be used by customers at the time of reservation thereby making them download the application.
The Instagram video marketing campaign was tried on food enthusiasts, people who enjoyed dining out and gourmet food lovers on Instagram. In order to trace new customers, they also created lookalike audiences as a separate adset for the ad. This made way for the brand marketers to tap into newer TGs.
The whole campaign turned out to be a huge success for the Dineout team as they noticed a dip in cost per app install by 17% and a reduction in cost per customer aquisitions by 39%.
If marketing is your passion and you consider creativity as a major pillar for brand building in this era then, Paperboat must be one of your favorites. On Instagram, it has a very vibrant, happy, and out of the box account that runs some of the best video ads on the platform.
Nostalgia is one of their key marketing technique which helped them gain a stronghold over the market earlier. It has continued to weave the same magic for them even after years because of their fresh ideas and conceptual advertisement.
One of their Instagram video marketing ads was featured on the world UFO day where they created a short clip of an old fashioned school van being lifted up as if there was a UFO. Sweet and simple with creatives that represented or lightly touched the essence of the “back in those days” theme.
It clearly builds strategies based on memories, flashbacks, childhood, 90’s days and everything emotional about today’s adults.
The sexual health and well-being brand is a pro on Instagram. Be it a simple post, festival wish, ongoing pandemic, or lockdown, Durex is a master at creating & curating some dapper dope content. If you visit the Durex India Instagram account, then I bet you cannot skip even 1 post without liking it.
The creatives are addictive, engaging and super exciting to read & decode. Their Instagram video ads are very popular where they leave behind great help and points for aspiring successful marketers to note.
Recently they ran two hashtags especially on Instagram that were #GoPlaces and #WhySoBoring to launch three new flavored condoms.
Quoting their chief marketing officer, Pankaj Duhan “We have doubled our business, and increased our market share by almost 50% (in this time). To keep up the momentum, we decided to venture more aggressively into the flavored (condoms) market, which is 70% of the overall condom market,”
To ignore the usual flavors of their competitors, Durex India came up with Bubblegum, wild berry, and vanilla popsicle flavors.
The campaign involved back to back posts on their Instagram feed that had unique facts & stats about Indian’s sexual health. It was followed by an 18-minute chat show with celebrities on “how to un-bore in bed” and then the brand launched two video ads that showed two different perspectives i.e. one of the men and other of the woman in a relationship.
These ads were short, simple, transparent with the message, and engaging enough to watch them both completely. The first ad showed two strangers in an airplane where the woman fantasizes about situations on a yacht and both end up making out in the flight’s lavatory.
The second video ad of the campaign has the same situation but it is the man fantasizing her in the backseat of his luxurious Limousine.
Smartly, Durex India associated both the ads with hashtags and went on live advertising for two weeks on Instagram.
Later they collaborated with influencers like Dolly Singh and The Scribbled Stories to get the most out of Instagram video marketing.
Most creative Instagram Video Marketing examples from around the globe
The brand is always known for its out of the box, captivating advertisements on all media. Here they have simply bought out the use of the product instead of explaining its features.
The fact being that the IKEA anti-slip floor mat is a regular product and everyone knows about its basic features. There is nothing new to add in the Instagram video ad other than being outright unique compared to other anti-slip mat brands.
The clip shows an adult slip to the floor with a thud while playing with a kid. This video surely reminds of a few of the funniest clips we have watched on YouTube. The same sequence repeats until the third one where it shows the real use of the mat.
It had a smart ad copy saying “What if an anti-slip mat turned a dining room into a playroom?”
No exaggeration. Familiarly funny clip. Short and crisp. Best suited for Instagram.
A true winner as always!
The insulated water bottle company creatively managed to make use of Instagram story features to maximize profit. It mostly makes flasks for outdoor activities which have a specific group of customers. Hence they worked on developing three variants of the product that depict three conditions i.e. Mountains, desert, and coast. The brand makes some fine engaging, potential customer retaining videos to be run on stories as advertisements.
To reach the right target market they used the ads on lookalike audiences based on their most valued customers. They also filtered and picked interest-based audiences that were parallel to the brands product and category thus increasing the viewer size. During the ad between November 2018 to February 2019, they had had 12,000 purchases indicating the good conversions, 80% increase in revenue, and a 16x return on ad spent.
Bravo for a niche brand like Hydro Flask.
When the popular donut brand wanted to increase its awareness related to its improved menu among the US consumers it used Instagram video as stories. The ad was directly engaging with a poll and was animated to give out just the right message without much frills and laces.
The campaign was run once without the polls and then the poll was added to test what worked more for the brand.
It asked the viewers “what’s your favorite American classic?” and gave options of Donuts and fries. The two cells split videos showed both the munchies and showed them battling within themselves for the main space and ending up as “donut fries”.
The ad also showed the result on the next slide to the viewers and announcing the new dish to them.
It involves the customer and is exciting on all sides.
This 2018 campaign proved that 20% of the viewers of the ad voted in the poll whereas the ad with the poll had 20% less cost per video view comparatively.
The children’s toy trader entered Instagram in 2017 and barely knew that they would have a sales boom in their business due to the platform. M&G used marketing campaigns aggressively to spread brand awareness and reach the maximum target market but unfortunately, they were not able to convince enough consumers online.
A kind of influencer marketing mixed with the concept of User-generated content worked miraculously for them.
While getting an order delivered, the team dropped notes inspiring their buyers to share their experience with short video clips and small captions on Instagram.
These existing purchasers made little fun clips of their children playing with the toys and tagged the brand with short captions.
These crowdsourced content on Instagram not just made the brand appear more trustworthy but also attracted new customers.
As they were promoting their final black Friday sale they managed to get a 4.6x increase in sales in 2018 compared to the previous year. Moreover, there were around 38% unique visitors on their website straight from Instagram.
Sports shoe companies like the Adidas were always creative in the way they marketed their products. One major type of Instagram video ad is called the unboxing where the brand got its army of innovators and designers to disclose top unique products.
With a tag of “made to be remade” Adidas unboxed its recyclable running shoes in the launch of its beta test. The shoes were impressively discussed and explained for their best reasons in the video which they posted on their official account.
As world battles, environment issues and climate changes the brand came up with the simple explanatory unbox video that is both engaging and encouraging. Customers made purchases and did similar unboxing videos tagging the brand and showing their excitement which inspired others to place their orders as well.
Corporate social responsibility? Check.
Innovation? Check.
Smart ad placement? Check.
Audience engagement? Check.
Showing the real Brand identity & personality? Too graceful. Yes! Check.
Conclusion
Placing video ads on Instagram is a clever move for marketers these days but there are few points that one must not forget.
Using relevant, right, and required hashtags and mentions are necessary hence make sure you know all about the product/service/event before advertising it. Write clear messages in the video ads and make sure the content copy has the basic information such as what, when, why, who, how to avoid confusion.
While creating video ads one should pay attention to the latest trends as nowadays social media is a dynamic stage where tables turn in a blink of an eye.
Most importantly video ads should be optimized according to the customer demand as well as interests. Make sure the target audience is covered to the maximum level possible.
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