Instagram claims users still ‘have control’ as adverts begin to appear in Australian feeds
Adverts will start to appear in Instagram feeds across Australia from today in a move that could run the risk of antagonising users of the previously ad-free photo sharing business.
Tourism Queensland, Vegemite, Ben & Jerry’s, Toyota, Flight Centre, Audi, Lenovo, McDonald’s and Philadelphia Cream Cheese have been named as the launch advertisers for the platform.
Instagram, recognising the potential backlash from users, insisted the brands have been “carefully selected” and are “already great members of the Instagram community”, and said ads will be marked with a sponsored label and “will look similar to other photos and videos users will see in their feed”.
Boo hoo to the whingers…Instagram is free to use so get over it.
i have not noticed any on my feed yet, and I have an eye out for them, on face
value it might sound like a bad thing but i will reserve judgment. I have said it before but I will say it again…. It is a brand doing what it can to attract new business. I would suggest that the majority of people using social media today hand over information, and might hope it is not going to be used in a creepy way, but we know we can’t control this and still make information publicly available anyway.
Also I do plenty of customer value proposition work and consumers are always bemoaning the lack of a proactive approach on the part of brand/companies in targeting them and individuals. We all like to see ourselves as individuals and want a brand to show it really understands us and surely this is a great way to do that. Trust me if a brand engaged with me in a way that demonstrated they understood my love of all things Star Wars I would sign up in a minute.
User backlash. Hardly. Just like the massive backlash on Facebook and Twitter no doubt.
Will be very interesting to see how many people hide ads and provide feedback as to why they don’t like it. Not that this specific information will likely be publicly released anyway.
The sales model is simple and very sound. This will be a big success for Facebook here locally. It will eat into mag budgets in a noticeable way.