Cheers to IGTV, Instagram’s new long-form video offering.
Bacardí is one of the first brands to raise a glass. On Friday, less than two weeks after the service was launched, the liquor brand was already running its first live experience.
“Any platform that gives you full view and a longer time for storytelling is great,” said Laila Mignoni, Bacardí’s director of creative excellence.
Bacardí invited fans to tune into IGTV to help direct a music video featuring famous dance duo Les Twins. From 1pm to 10pm EST, Bacardí used Instagram’s interactive poll feature to let fans vote on which angles, shots, locations and filters they wanted in the video.
The final edit of the music video was posted on both Bacardí and Les Twins’ Instagram accounts the following day.
“We’re giving [customers] the platform to create the content they want, versus us creating it,” Mignoni said.
One interesting challenge for Bacardí was getting users to think about Instagram as a platform for appointment viewing rather than scrolling. To get the word out to fans to tune in at a specific time, Bacardí stuck with Instagram to promote the video on both its own and Les Twins’ account.
“[Les Twins] have a lot of followers and they’ve been super engaged,” Mignoni said. “It’s a word of mouth approach.”
Because IGTV doesn’t have any opportunities for media yet, it’s unclear how the platform stacks up against YouTube for paid executions. Bacardí works closely with YouTube, but decided to use IGTV for this campaign because users could interact with the directors through polls, Mignoni said.
The results of the activation, which was more about experimentation than hard KPIs, aren’t in yet, but Mignoni said she would like to know more about how people are engaging with the new format.
“Let’s see how it evolves and how people are reacting to it,” she said.
But, so far at least, the brand is pleased with the creative opportunities IGTV affords.
“Up until now, it was quite limited what you could do on these platforms,” Mignoni said. “You couldn’t do a full story format like a music video. We’re very excited about the fact that it’s long format.”
Although it’s too early to tell how IGTV will factor into Bacardí’s overall media plan, the brand will “definitely be back,” Mignoni said.
