Campaign Summary

Instagram Business selected five brands in India to participate in a campaign showcasing how branded content ads on its platform can move measurable business outcomes.

Strategy

Objective:

In the year 2020, when the world was forced into social distancing, the role of social media platforms to connect with friends, community, creators, and brands, became even more prominent in the lives of consumers.

As per research, two out of three Indians use Instagram to interact with creators. This relationship between the creator and follower is unique to Instagram, because it is built over a common passion point or interest and is an authentic two-way communication about life. Here, audiences and creators share their anxieties, solutions, concerns, hacks, tips, and life choices with each other more openly than ever before. Data shows four out of five Instagram users recognize brands on Instagram as being authentic.

With 90 percent of people following a brand on Instagram, companies now have an opportunity to reach out to their consumers through the voice of creators in an authentic manner. However, influencer marketing was still considered a "buzzword" by many in the marketing fraternity.

Instagram Business wanted to showcase how influencer marketing on its platform was much more than a buzzword and can actually move measurable business outcomes with branded content ads. Branded content ads would allow brands to directly promote content made by influencers among their target audience, leading to brands covering the entire marketing funnel, from building awareness to driving trails.

Target Audience:

The target audience was marketing professionals in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, ages 25-44.

This demographic is:

• "Looking for inspiration"
• "Looking for different cultural experiences and influences that will broaden their horizons"
• "Competitive in nature"
• "Observant and influential"
• "When they see or hear something interesting about a brand they like to pass it on"
• "Ambitious, go-getter"
• "Their social life is more important than their working life"

Creative Strategy:

On Instagram, the connection between creators and their followers is two-way, authentic, and rooted in love. Creators inspire followers to take action and are in turn driven forward by the love they receive from them. The initiative "Love Runs Deep" was established to highlight this bond by showing how effortlessly brands can become a part of this journey where creators and their followers meet and move business outcomes.

Keeping in line with this philosophy of "Love Runs Deep", Instagram Business onboarded 25 diverse creators who best represented the wide diaspora of content native to the platform and varied passion points of the audiences, including food, fashion, art, fitness, and lifestyle.

To drive trials and move behavior among marketers, the brand launched the #LoveRunsDeep challenge, wherein brands could send in their brand briefs with various objectives and win a chance to curate a campaign with the leading influencers on Instagram. They could experience first-hand how their target audiences respond to their story and how their business objectives could be met.

Context:

From major brands to mom-and-pop shops, businesses around the world are moving business outcomes with Instagram. With branded content ads, advertisers can push full funnel objectives with creator partnerships on Instagram and ensure measurement.

This was the first ever attempt made by Instagram Business to showcase the power of influencer marketing branded content ads. Previously brands had only used influencer marketing to create buzz, but never considered how it could help move business outcomes.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

Phase 1: Bringing alive the philosophy and introduction to the challenge

1. Through an exclusive roundtable discussion between advertisers and influencers on the leading marketing platform Brand Equity, the brand brought alive a meaningful dialogue and new-age ideas on "marketing with love".
2. Creators from different genres put out reels on Instagram to acknowledge, highlight and strengthen the love between them and their community.
3. Instagram Business turned the 25 selected creators into the faces of its campaign. It targeted the marketing community across all top brands and agencies with 25 tailor-made content pieces in the genuine voice and style of each creator talking about why their love runs deep with their community. There was a call for entries in the form of brand briefs for the #LoveRunsDeep challenge.

Phase 2: Bringing alive the #LoveRunsDeep Challenge and outcomes

Leveraging the large base of leaders in the category, Instagram Business received over 2,800 entries from leading advertising brands like Nestle, RB, Perfetti, Tata, ICICI Bank, Yum, and Amazon.

Five brand briefs won: Close Up, Spotify, Red Label, Swiggy Genie, and MyBageecha.

Mobile Execution:

The mobile channel used was Instagram to show scale, optimization, and measurement.

The five winning brands:

1. Close Up, the world's first ever gel toothpaste brand, wanted to increase salience during Valentine's Day with its #freedomtolove campaign. Creators developed content that showcased their own personal stories of love overcoming norms like age difference and a diverse background. It was targeted to ages 18-40, using branded content ads.
2. Spotify, an audio streaming platform, wanted as many listeners as possible to experience its playlists. Through its #Listenwiththeworld campaign, creators developed content that showcased how diverse playlists on Spotify inspire their work. It was targeted to ages 18-65.
3. Red Label, one of India's largest selling tea brands, wanted to start conversations to make India more inclusive with its #letsunstereotypeIndia campaign. Creators addressed different stereotypes they faced personally (ageism, gender, mental wellbeing, language) in conversational content targeted at females ages 25 and over.
4. Swiggy Genie, a hyper-local delivery service in India, wanted to showcase its product's benefit, and worked with five creators for its campaign "Keep calm and let Swiggy Genie do the kaam." Assets showcased how creators used the Genie service for everyday tasks like picking up a charger from a shop and getting their hot lunch picked up from home. It was targeted at ages 18-45.
5. MyBageecha, an emerging business from Ahmedabad, wanted to establish itself as a national brand with its first brand campaign on Instagram using celebrity creator Kareena Kapoor Khan. The content developed with the creator showcased five different plants that could be used for gifting during the Diwali holiday and received great traction. The target audience was 18-54.

Business Impact (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

Content made through collaborations with creators was directly promoted by brands. Branded content ads scaled a creator's post to each brand's target audience, offering the same measurement and testing capabilities as other ad products. The Instagram Love Runs Deep campaign proved branded content ads could deliver business outcomes on Instagram Business.

Key results of the five brands who participated in the campaign:

• Close Up: There was a 4.4 point lift in ad recall for the campaign. The ad recall lift was driven by a 6-point lift for males and a 6.6 point lift among ages 18-24, the core target group.
• Spotify: The campaign registered an increase of 1.8 points in action intent. There was a 23 percent lift in India Daily Active Users (DAUs) on the Today's Top Hits playlist and a 22 percent growth in playlist streams.
• Red Label: The campaign produced an increase of 8.7 points in ad recall, and an increase of 3.8 points in message recall.
• Swiggy: The campaign generated an increase of 6.9 points in ad recall, an increase of 3.6 points in top-of-mind awareness, and a 1.5-point lift in message association.
• MyBageecha: The campaign reached 14.7 million people and experienced a 3.5-point lift in ad recall.