The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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Instagram

Is Instagram Layout important for brands?

By Tim Palmer

March 30, 2015 | 3 min read

I use Instagram. You probably use Instagram. And over 300million people all over the world use Instagram. So of course it makes complete sense that brands display their wares in the digital shop window constantly nestled within their target audience's hand, because the audience certainly won’t go to the brand where they are, so brands have to go to the audience.

First there was Instagram, then there was Instagram Hyperlapse, and now there is Instagram Layout. Layout lets its users get creative with their images, laying them out next to one another, flipping and rotating them. It isn’t anything new that ‘grammers weren’t already doing, they just weren’t using Instagram to do it, so now Instagram has fulfilled the need.

But what does Layout mean for brands? Well, as getting the attention of audiences is more and more difficult, brands need to focus on not acting like brands, but acting more like their audience, in the hope of getting seen. We saw a few brands on launch day of the app manipulating their images, and posting with the hash tag #layout to garner attention from their audiences.

Victoria's Secret

MTV Italy

And Valspar

So is it important that brands embrace new social media techniques like Layout? No. Probably not. But then it’s not really important that anybody does, and consumers do it all the time, and they like to see other like-minded people do the same, and if a brand can seem like minded too, then they have now engaged their audience a little, and the brand one step closer to top of mind when their audience becomes a consumer, and has to make a decision between one brand and the next.

And that’s what it is all about in the competitive brand race, every little thing can make a difference. Just like every gram on a F1 race car can make a difference between first place and not even a place on the podium. And it is the job of brand managers to give their brands every chance, with every financially viable little edge available. Which is important.

Tim Palmer is digital creative director at FCB Inferno

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