How RayBan Takes on Instagram Advertising
Rayban’s take on Instagram video advertising and how to effectively capture an audience
When looking at videos for this week’s Medium post, I wanted to stick mainly to ads rather than a more documentary-style video.
What I found interesting is that many brands are using a documentary-style video format for their ads. I noticed many brands making 60 second Instagram videos complete with an interview, b-roll, transitions and on-screen text in order to create a mini documentary that doubled as an ad. I believe their reasoning for this, rather than just product videos or shots, is to almost fool the viewer into viewing their ad.
I landed on analyzing a small series from @rayban on Instagram. Since I am into music and also a lover of sunglasses, I found this series very interesting to critique and analyze.
This series follows a Korean DJ (@peggygou_) who views sunglasses as a great way to express her style. The mini documentary / ad spot features eight consecutive posts made up of five photos and three videos. I will be focusing on two of the three videos as they are Part 1 and 2 whereas the third video is not related.
The two posts feature a voice over of @peggygou_ explaining who she is and why she feels connected to the company, RayBan.
The first video hooks the viewer in with intense sounds of a concert and visuals of DJ set performed by @pegyygou_. The video serves as a short bio of who @peggygou_ is. It sets up the viewer so they can view the subsequent videos and images with some context as to why she is being featured. The video also makes no mention of RayBan or even sunglasses. She is not even wearing sunglasses in many of the shots. However, of the shots with sunglasses, the RayBan logo is clearly visible and is shot in a cinematic way following the rule of thirds.
The second Instagram video linked shows @peggygou_ wearing different styles of RayBan sunglasses. While her voiceover is playing the entire duration of the video, the video is cut into six different shots. It switches from a cinematic b-roll shot to a video of an interview with @peggygou_ and continues that pattern for each shot throughout the video.
Another note about the cinematography, the color palette in each scene either perfectly matches or complements the color of the kind of sunglasses @peggygou_ is wearing — a subtle detail, but one that is important for the viewers subconscious viewing of the content.
Overall, the imagery, cinematography and sounds used in this series of videos is a great example of how an effective and professional advertising campaign on Instagram should look and — more importantly— feel.
