Instagram’s “Connection” campaign set out to position Instagram as THE social platform that GenZ uses to connect around the things they love. The campaign intended to drive metrics across awareness, perception, and believability.
Fandom was the ideal partner for this campaign due to their massive reach to Gen Z and deep understanding of Gen Z’s passions and interests. Fandom used this understanding to create and deliver creative authentic content, solutions and custom high impact creative that would break through to create excitement and engagement with young audiences.
Together, Instagram and Fandom set out to highlight the way Instagram creates and strengthens real connections and friendship among young audiences via an authentic, live experience that would resonate with Gen Z.
Gaming emerged as a key passion point for GenZ, who are 3.1x* more likely to be Gamers than the average consumer. Gaming is a primary way that GenZ connects and spends time together - the campaign capitalized on this by focusing on all the ways that Instagram helps to make that time even more meaningful - from messaging, to sharing.
*Source: Reach, gender, age = Comscore Media Metrix- Q2 2023; Race and Ethnicity = Comscore Plan Metrix / MRI Simmons USA Fusion - Q2 2023; Quantcast, June 202
Instagram’s brand campaign in the US - Instagram Connections - celebrated Gen-Z and the real connections and friendships built on Instagram through small, everyday acts of creative expression.
On September 19, 2023 Instagram, in partnership with Fandom, brought fans an immersive & interactive live stream event featuring popular rapper Offset and competitive gamer FaZe Swagg (member of the FaZe Clan Esports team) that celebrated the friendship they built on Instagram through their shared passion for gaming.
Offset and FaZe Swagg faced off in a 2+ hour Madden 24 game which was live streamed across multiple channels, with thousands of fans tuning in to connect with each other around excitement over the influencers and their shared love of gaming. The co-play content established Instagram as the leading platform for Gen Z gamers to connect with one another over their love of gaming and also included custom video, digital, and social content.
The campaign hinged on finding premium talent that had a genuine passion for gaming and were relevant to Gen Z audiences. Faze Swagg and Offset were selected based on their authentic connection to both gaming and the game itself - Offset is a big Madden fan - to help amplify the way that Instagram connects people over shared interests. Their built-in social audiences helped to drive and maximize viewership for the live event.
By leveraging Fandom’s expansive Gen-Z audience of 20+ million fans and 150 million highly engaged gaming fans, Instagram was able to authentically reach true gaming and entertainment fans at scale and help them organically connect with one another on the social platform.
The program unfolded in three strategic phases, each meticulously designed to maximize engagement and viewership:
The 360-degree campaign featured diverse assets including custom video, digital, and social content:
Fandom-produced branded content recapping the entire campaign, via a “friendship recap” ensuring a lasting impact.
Instagram was able to authentically reach true gaming and entertainment fans at scale and help them organically connect with one another on the social platform over their love of gaming - which was the overall goal for this partnership.
The Instagram Connection campaign on Fandom was very effective in shifting the perception and awareness of Instagram, especially among the Gen-Z audience (+33 pts unaided awareness). The content and experiences created elevated messaging (+25pts message association) around Instagram as THE social platform that brings people together as they connect on what they love, moving the needle across all brand attributes and brand believability.
Success metrics:
Brand Lift Study: For this campaign we ran a brand lift study to measure the campaign’s successes and below are the results.
Audience Brand Impact:
Media Performance:
