Have you ever been hooked psychologically by the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ strategy? I’m curious why this strategy was successful? - Help me find out.
(Source: http://wersm.com/how-to-add-existing-photos-or-videos-to-your-instagram-stories/)
The advertising industry is evolving, and new mobile formats are emerging every day, the evolution of the advertisement has been adjusting from shorter ads to disappearing stories. These new formats are changing the marketing game to reach customers. Anyway, this new game triumphed over me with a psychological strategy.
After the upset of Facebook when it failed to take over Snapchat in 2013, Instagram, acquired by Facebook in 2012, added a new feature in 2016 which is a copycat of Snapchat’s called ‘Stories’ (Ingram M., 2016). Via this imitator, users can upload temporary content including photos and videos, which will then vanish in 24 hours. Hence the name ‘Vanishing Content’.
In 2017, Instagram announced immersive adverts coming to Instagram Stories. They let businesses choose the target and reach capabilities that make their adverts personally relevant to the people they want to reach (Instagram Business Team, 2017). Let’s see how this vanishing content successfully grabbed my attention.
Yesterday (1st November 2017) while I was enjoying watching my friends’ Story on Instagram, I was attracted by Adidas’s advertising offering 75% discount as shown on Instagram Stories (in the above video). It appeared between Stories from two different following users, and like the 15-second advertisements occurring between videos on YouTube, but much shorter, it vanished within 5 seconds, then my friends’ Stories played continuously. I immediately realized that this content would disappear completely if I simply refreshed the feed ‒ and I couldn’t miss this opportunity. So I swiped back to the advertisement offering the 75% discount deal. It worked! I grabbed my new Adidas Yeezy Boost (shoes) from this website. Everything happened in short time. Was I just hooked psychologically by the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ strategy? I’m curious why this strategy was successful?
Pros of ‘Vanishing Contents’ in Marketing
(Source: https://digiday.com/marketing/5-brands-using-ads-instagram-stories/)
After I saw the Adidas deal, there are many more different advertisements on Instagram Stories such as Spotify, Louis Vuitton France and ASOS. This platform is becoming more popular and also represents different ways of advertising. For instance, Airbnb, a travel rental business, was one of the first sponsors that spent marketing costs on ‘Stories’. Instead of offering a deal, Airbnb advertised brand awareness; it released 15-second spots showing travellers exploring San Francisco and Japan (Caffyn G., 2017). This marketing content persuades viewers to travel via experience-driven stories. Furthermore, Airbnb’s advertisement was picked in particular as a good instance of advertising on this platform through various blogs and it also received attention successfully on other platforms, not just as vanishing content on Instagram. Big applause for Airbnb.
Why has ‘Stories’ become popular as a marketing tool in 2017?
(Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/04/instaface/)
In early 2017, Instagram Stories now totals 250 million daily activities ‒ higher than Snapchat, which has 166 million (Antonio K., 2017). Besides, people are spending more than 24-32 minutes a day on Instagram, according to ages (Hsu K., 2017). This suggests that Instagram users are more likely to enjoy engaging vanishing ‘Stories’ daily. This is a result of Instagram’s new algorithm that weights several factors of our activities psychologically to show the contents we are likely to engage with first (Perry K., 2017). As this platform becomes more stickiness when we use it, marketers should explore this massive opportunity in particular to place their creative ephemeral contents on this new marketing channel. Additionally, this also explains why I was hooked by the Adidas offer, because I am also following many sport brands on Instagram and I usually surf through hashtag #sneaker and #adidas.
Effectiveness of ‘Fear of Missing Out’
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vLjGa1sI98)
Although the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ strategy produces beneficial results for businesses, it could harm audiences’ mental wellbeing simultaneously. This old marketing trick was turned into a new profitable platform ‒ ‘Stories’. Since every photo and video uploaded in ‘Stories’ will vanish in 24 hours, this leads to videos and images becoming more exclusive. Despite the content does not make consumers feel too annoyed because it is easy to be skipped and highly targeted, ephemeral offers on Stories provide limited decision time to catch the offers before they disappear. Consequently, some customers experience a high level of anxiety and depression because of the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ representation (Hsu K., 2017). Indeed, I was a victim who got depressed on swiping back to the 75% discount Adidas offer; my inner voice said, ‘Are you really gonna miss this huge chance?’ ‒ so I got my new shoes!
Conclusion
At this point, I have analyzed how audiences were hooked critically on the vanishing content. Ephemerality becomes tricky in marketing obviously by Instagram Stories as it is driven by a psychological strategy: ‘Fear of Missing Out’. This platform is interesting since it is not only depressing targeted audiences to be trapped out of promotions but also uses different marketing goals such as raising brand awareness. Nevertheless, Instagram Stories ads are too expensive for most small to medium sized businesses, compared to Snapchat (Gotter A., 2017). However, its seamlessly integrated advertising between other users’ stories on a platform is known and worth it for its high engagement and incredible targeting potential. Now, readers are aware how easy it is to get my money!
References
Antonio K. (2017). Instagram Stories Vs. Snapchat Stories – 2017 Statistics. [online] Social Report Support. Available at: https://support.socialreport.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005343286-Instagram-Stories-Vs-Snapchat-Stories-2017-Statistics [Accessed on 5 Nov. 2017].
Caffyn G. (2017). How 5 brands are using ads on Instagram Stories - Digiday. [online] Digiday. Available at: https://digiday.com/marketing/5-brands-using-ads-instagram-stories/ [Accessed on 7 Nov. 2017].
Gotter A. (2017). 3 Ways to Use Instagram Stories Ads for Business. [online] Socialmediaexaminer.com. Available at: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-ways-to-use-instagram-stories-ads-for-business/ [Accessed on 6 Nov. 2017].
Hsu K. (2017). Instagram's Creative Lead Shares 6 Reasons Marketers Should Embrace Vanishing Content. [online] Adweek.com. Available at: http://www.adweek.com/digital/instagrams-creative-lead-shares-6-reasons-marketers-should-embrace-vanishing-content/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2017].
Ingram M. (2016). Facebook Shows Its Snapchat Envy as Instagram Launches Stories. [online] Fortune. Available at: http://fortune.com/2016/08/02/facebook-instagram-snapchat/ [Accessed on 7 Nov. 2017].
Instagram for Business. (2017). Instagram Stories adverts – now available for all businesses globally. [online] Available at: https://business.instagram.com/blog/instagram-stories-available-globally?locale=en_GB [Accessed on 3 Nov. 2017]
Perry K. (2017). People Are Dying To Know Why Instagram Stories Ranks Viewers In A Particular Order. [online] Social Media Week. Available at: https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2017/07/lurkers-on-top/ [Accessed on 5 Nov. 2017].
This topic is interesting, I'm working in this field and I do agree with your post.
Some information is useful, can I share this?
This is tricky and interesting!
FOMO is all time classic marketing tool !!
I really like this article.
Oh that's why I always see an advertisement on IG's Story. Because I like searching for shopping online. Haha, next time I will buy offline instead because Ads on Story is kinda annoying sometimes. Luckily it is easy to skip, though.