This piece came on the heels of a video released by Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseiri, in which he announced some changes to Instagram that nobody really wanted, while leaving alone all the things users had been complaining about.
We dressed Daily Show correspondent Michael Kosta almost identical to Mosseiri and had him deliver a similar-looking "address to Instagram users." Kosta shot the video from his home to give it a casual style while we directed him over Zoom. Content wise, we wanted to capture the essence of Mosseiri's video: that the changes IG was proposing were useless. Through the visual similarities and polished look, the video was meant to fool fans into thinking it was real for the first few seconds - until (in true Daily Show style) it veers unexpectedly off course.
The Daily Show's fake PSA drove 3.1M and more than 3M impressions on Instagram alone, with many fans commenting they almost believed Michael Kosta was the real CEO speaking.
