Why Guinness picked Instagram for its ‘social first’ 60-second ad
Guinness is the first brand to launch a 60-second ad on Instagram in the UK and Ireland as it seeks to take a ‘social first’ approach for its marketing and reach Instagram’s “discerning audience”.
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Guinness was the first UK brand to use Instagram’s 60-second ad format
The ad is the latest installment of the brand’s ‘Made of More’ campaign, which tells the story of John Hammond who became one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music and discovered musicians like Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Aretha Franklin. The ad is set to air for the first time in the UK and Ireland tomorrow (3 February).
The ad and accompanying historical documentary will be supported with an ATL campaign in TV, digital, social and PR. Guinness is also the first brand to launch a 60-second spot on Instagram, with Stephen O’Kelly, the brand’s marketing director for Western Europe, telling Marketing Week it was “the perfect medium”.
“Instagram has grown enormously in scale in the past 12 months and is a channel best suited for stylish and striking imagery. We believed it was the perfect medium to shine a light on the beauty of our film to a discerning audience,” he said.
The brand, which is owned by Diageo, was also keen to take a social-first approach in a bid to appease younger audiences. He explained: “The audience we are after seek all new information on their social media feeds. We recognise that our brand content is most valuable to millennial audiences when it is new, so we want to give social influencers and brand advocates the chance to share it socially before it airs on TV.”
Besides the TV ad, the brand is also producing four mini documentaries based around present-day artists who “embody John Hammond’s spirit and vision”, which will be published in a few weeks’ time.
“We are making some bespoke Instagram formats to promote these wonderful stories and have been working directly with Instagram to make sure these are exactly what users love to engage with on the platform,” O’Kelly added.
Going forward, Guinness is keen to plan similar initiatives on other platforms. He concluded: “Yes absolutely, we will continue with our social first approach for all new content we develop. Incidentally we are one of the first brands in Great Britain to use Twitter’s new Qualified Impression Buy and the first brand in Ireland to do so today.”