Since Facebook’s billion dollar purchase of Instagram the amount of users on the photo-sharing platform has exploded. According to the company itself, there are 130 million active users of Instagram, more than 50% of these living outside the US. The increase in usage has been exponential, not least in Denmark. Roskilde Festival, the largest festival in Northern Europe, can be used as an example of the growth. According to Overskrift.dk, the official festival hashtag #rf12 was used 4.000 times at last year’s festival. This year the #rf13 hashtag was used more than 40.000 times. That’s tenfold in just one year.
From our qualitative research we know what draws people to social media. First, it’s about connectedness and belonging. Second, it’s about entertainment and diversion. Third, it’s about control: control by users and for users. After all, the users are the engine that drives social media and their unique appeal. Instagram is a great example of a social media delivering on exactly those promises.
So how does Instagram apply to marketing in the Danish market? We have collected a few good examples of Danish companies using Instagram to engage with their consumers.
Share your Coca Cola Moment
Coca Cola has had a tremendously successful campaign “Share a coke with…” in which Coke drinkers could find their names on coke bottles:
Consumers were also encouraged to share their Coca Cola moments on Instagram using the hashtag #ShareCokeDK. This way friends of users would be exposed to “personal commercials” from the people they follow. Here is an example of “Ditte” who has shared a trip to the beach with her followers:
Source: Instagram
It is well known that users are influenced much more efficiently by people they know so for marketers experiencing consumers sharing content on their own initiative is like a dream come true.
Coca Cola is one of the companies that always beforms great and comes up with innovative and efficient ways to use new media. One of our favorite examples is Coca Cola Romania who recently integrated live tweets in TV ads. Check out the campaign here, and expect to see more like this in the future:
Maersk Line
Maersk line, which is the biggest company in Denmark, also has a very substantial Instagram Profile. More than 20.000 followers are being exposed to their content at the time of writing. Their content is mostly characterized by professional pictures of their ships and ports. This gives them a great connection to stakeholders who are interested in the shipping world. Furthermore, Maersk has used social media to proactively handle crises. For instance, they chose to upload photos where they had hit and killed a whale with one of their ships instead of waiting for someone else to do it.
Visit Copenhagen
One of the most successful Danish Instagram campaigns was made by the tourist office of Copenhagen, Visit Copenhagen. Visit Copenhagen launched a campaign in which 8 prominent Copenhageners were given the task of showing “their Copenhagen”. The campaign launched the Instagram profile from around 500 followers to almost 10.000. At the time of writing, the number of followers is more than 15.000. This gives Visit Copenhagen a very great global reach for future campaigns.
TDC – Ida Corr featuring dig (TDC – Ida Corr featuring you)
TDC, Denmark’s largest telecom has made a Facebook application that uses Instagram’s new video feature allowing fans to produce their own dance videos, remixes and cover art photos to Ida Corr’s newest single. These videos were then integrated into the final video for the song, making it a crowd-sourced video. This is a new and very creative use of combining different social media channels that are available and the result is quite cool:
What’s next?
Video was recently added to Instagram and with the latest version of the app. It is now possible to upload video that is already on your phone instead of only recording with the app. This means that companies can upload professionally produced campaigns, specifically made for Instagram. Maersk line can upload videos of their fleet. Visit Copenhagen will be able to reach more than 15.000 users with videos of Copenhagen and TDC will be able to share the result of their Ida Corr collaboration on the media where their users are.
At Millward Brown, we can’t wait to see the results. What do you think we will see on Instagram? Feel free to leave a comment.
Millward Brown Denmark 