Stuart Dredge 

Instagram ads reach the UK with Waitrose, Rimmel and Channel 4

Starbucks, Cadbury and Estee Lauder also on board for ‘slow, measured’ launch of Facebook-owned app. By Stuart Dredge
  
  

One of Rimmel London's first Instagram ads in the UK.
One of Rimmel London’s first Instagram ads in the UK. Photograph: PR

Photo-sharing app Instagram is introducing adverts into the feeds of its British users, following their introduction in the US in 2013.

The Facebook-owned app will run ads from brands including Waitrose, Rimmel, Channel 4, Starbucks, Cadbury, Estee Lauder and Sony Music in the UK from this week.

“We are giving brands an opportunity to sponsor their posts and deliver them to a much wider audience,” Instagram’s global head of business and brand development James Quarles told The Guardian.

“We are starting with brands who already have a very strong presence on Instagram. We want this to be a natural experience, like the way people consume high-quality ads flicking through a magazine.”

Instagram launched as a free iPhone app in October 2010, enabling people to apply visual filters to their photos, then share them with other Instagram users, as well as on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

The app was ported to Android smartphones in April 2012, shortly before Facebook agreed to buy the company for $1bn. Instagram now has more than 200m active users who have posted more than 20bn photos with its app.

In the UK, Instagram ads will follow the template set in the US, where they launched in November 2013: still photos – not videos, yet – which people can choose to like, comment on or hide from their feed.

Waitrose’s first Instagram campaign in the UK will be based on its “Love Food” promotion, with shots of “deliciously messy” cookery according to Quarles.

Meanwhile, Rimmel London will be running a campaign based on images of women putting on make-up with the help of reflective surfaces, from mirrors to windows; Channel 4 will be promoting two of its new TV series; and Sony Music is running an ad for pop star Olly Murs.

“We are partnering very closely with creative agencies, with the brands themselves, and sometimes with freelance photographers who are already great community members,” said Quarles.

Instagram is pitching itself as a “premium brand environment” comparable to magazines, reflected in the US by reported prices of anywhere between $350k and $1m for a month-long campaign.

In March, advertising industry site Ad Age reported that Instagram had struck a year-long deal worth up to $100m with agency group Omnicom. The first seven brands launching Instagram ads in the UK are all managed by Omnicom-owned agencies.

“We think that the consumption – when people are sitting, scrolling through their Instagram feed in this relaxed moment – that is consistent with taking your favourite magazine and flipping through pages, having images that capture your attention,” said Quarles.

“Some are advertising, some are editorial, and some are in between. And this is what people most associate with Instagram: beautiful images. People curate their feeds so carefully on Instagram: they choose photographers, celebrities and friends, which is much more consistent with a creative context.”

As in the US, Instagram has run a “house ad” in the week leading up to the first ads’ appearance, explaining its plans and showing “an example of what an ad on Instagram looks like”.

“We want to create an environment that’s authentic, transparent and honest. We are trying to be really slow, measured and thoughtful,” said Quarles.

“We are going to go slow, and we are going to learn. At the start, it’s a very slow introduction to the market, to help people understand what it looks like. We’re very much in a learning mode, but we think we’ve struck a great balance in the States.”

In October 2013, when Instagram had 150m active users, the company’s chief executive Kevin Systrom told the Guardian that 6.9m of those people were in the UK: one of its biggest countries outside the US.

Instagram has already said that the next countries to get ads after the US and UK will be Australia and Canada: a rollout to English-speaking countries that reflects the company’s expansion of offices and editorial staff.

“The sequence is that we build our community, then highlight and partner closely with great creators on the platform. We set the tone first, then it’s easy to get brands building organic presences,” said Quarles. Only then will Instagram introduce paid ads.

He added that while branding campaigns are the focus for Instagram’s advertising business at the moment, there is potential to open up to other kinds of companies and content, including editorial.

“We’re very open to working with publishers. We love what the Guardian and BBC do for using Instagram for short snippets. I do think we’re open to having further discussions as to how those might go to a wider audience, because the content’s so good,” said Quarles.

“And in the US, you can see us working with lots of the movie studios, broadcasters and sports leagues like the NFL and MLB. They are getting very creative about how they do the recaps via Instagram. Perhaps you can see someone like Sky coming through with that for sports in the UK.”

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