Waking up in the morning and opening Instagram to check my friends’ Stories – no exaggeration, this is the first thing I do every day.
With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram Stories has very distinctive features and advantages.
- Concise format, easy to make, share, anytime and anywhere to record life moment;
- Sharing content is mainly short videos, which are lively and more engaging.
- Content that automatically disappears 24 hours after it is posted.
- Full-screen viewing with an immersive browsing experience.
- Users can freely play with the production with rich customisation settings and interaction design.
Instagram officially reports that a third of the most viewed Instagram Stories are from business, making it the best choice for connecting with potential consumers.
Instagram Story Ads is based on Instagram’s Stories feature, a form of Native Advertising that is hidden in the accounts that users follow and is presented in the same way as stories posted by friends. As a result, users are always “incidentally” viewing ads while browsing Stories – often without even realising it myself.
Let’s take a look at this example:
SKIN CEUTICALS’ Instagram Story Ads, with the label “Sponsored” in the top left corner under the user name to differentiate between advertising and non-advertising content. It also uses a dynamic design, with a 5-second vertical video showing a multidimensional image of the product and the brand tagline, introducing its main selling points, “ANTIOXIDANT” and “ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION. “At the end, the user can click on “Learn More” to open the purchase page directly – or, of course, swipe up at any time during the video to start your shopping experience.
Typically, when using Instagram Story, users will scroll the daily videos posted by their friends. SKIN CEUTICALS’ dynamic ads, therefore, fit into the user’s experience, appearing seamlessly in the user’s process. If they don’t specifically notice the ‘Sponsored’ label, they are likely to watch the ad before they realise: that’s not my friend!
Furthermore, if they are interested, they may even make a purchase. It’s worth noting that with Instagram Story Ads, you can swipe up to purchase without exiting the app. Obviously, this saves the step and time of switching and makes it easier for consumers to do shopping.
The Instagram Story Ads capture the trend of fast-paced media usage, represented by short vertical videos, which is now becoming mainstream. At the same time, Instagram can use algorithms to help advertisers accurately target consumers based on their type of followers and browsing preferences to maximise reaching customers and turn traffic into conversions – users can receive a brand ad without having to follow the advertiser.
https://www.marketingcharts.com/digital/social-media-115413
The seamless watching experience that Instagram Story Ads give users can, on the one hand, make them become potential consumers of a brand, reducing their ‘ad avoidance‘ behaviour to a certain extent. Still, on the other hand, if they find that they are inadvertently ‘forced’ to watch an ad – the erosion of the firewall between ad and non-advertising by native ads – it is likely to trigger even more anger!