Instagram "Stories are everywhere" (2017) 3:15 (The Netherlands)

This highlight reel touting Instagram's relatively new rip off of Snapchat's Stories feature does its best to show you that stories are everywhere by juxtposing references from movies, tv, film, news and more. A space shuttle taking off becomes a fat guy eating a pizza. A CGI monster because a guy drawing on his upside down mouth to pretend he's a monster. A pair of dolphins breathtakingly breaking the surface of the ocean for a brief wistful moment become bananas doing the same thing, kind of. I dunno.
The campaign is running in the USA, Germany and Italy. The work first started rolling out in April and culminated last weekend with an 'Insta Stories Festival' in Cologne.
The stories were all created in less than three months, which is zero surprise considering how easy they are to do The campaign included 26 different films like the ones above as well as more than 270 billboards digital billboards train station take overs in Philadelphia and Milan and more.
I realize this is a highlight reel so you wouldn't ever see this many in the wild so to speak. At least I hope not. Presumably the back-to-back aspects are kept to a minimum if even there at all. The curious thing to me is why Instagram, a free platform, is even spending money to get people to engage with stories and why is it doing so now? Stories launched in August of 2016. Here we are coming up on a full year later. Seems like a strange time to start advertising something that all the major social media networks have minus Twitter.
The unintended consequence of this highlight reel is that it demonstrates exactly why living your life on Instagram pales in comparison to everything else. If I have the choice between fat guy stuffing his pie hole with sticker pizza and watching a space shuttle, I'll stick with space shuttle. Te things that are being "created," in this highlight reel (and on Instagram in general) might be great in-jokes among friends but taken in this context they are merely copies of better experiences, not to mention extremely shallow, stupid and meant to disappear. All the real moments are vastly more interesting.
Which is not to say this isn't an effective piece of communication. I follow tons of people in advertising, music, and pop culture in general, but I haven't seen much approaching even halfway close to this interesting. Whats even worse now is that if I scroll through the stories I'm in undated with ads. But that's also true of their regular feed, too. That's why we call it Adstagram.

Client: INSTAGRAM
Chief Marketing Officer Clifford Hopkins
Head of Global Brand Marketing Taj Alavi
Head of Creative, Marketing Bekah Sirrine
Global Brand Managers Lauren A. Rodwell, André Llewellyn
Creative Maud Deitch
Associate Brand Marketing Manager Jessica Dickey
Agency: WIEDEN+KENNEDY AMSTERDAM
Executive Creative DirectorMark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Director: Thierry Albert, Cal Al-Jorani, Craig Williams
Art Director: Cecilia Pignocchi, Emma Mällinen, Cassandre Gouraud, Jordi Luna, Mariano Garcia Cruz
Copywriter: Andrew Duncan, Chris Taylor, Jake Barnes
Head of Broadcast Production: Joe Togneri
Executive Producer:Tony Stearns
Producer: Stijn Wikkerink
Assistant Producer Khalid el Khouani
Head of Interactive Production: Kelsie Van Deman
Interactive Producer: Morgan Mendel, Annatruus Bakker, Debra Clarke
Experiential Producer: Caitlin DeAngelis
Head of Art Production: Maud Klarenbeek
Art Buyer: Rachel Perry, Stacey Prudden
Head of Planning: Martin Weigel
Planning Director: Emma Wiseman
Strategic Planner: Anna Leonte
Head of Communication and Digital Strategy: Greg White
Communications Planner: Wes Young
Digital Strategist: Freddie Young
Content Coordinator: Sara Constance
Group Account Director: Clare Pickens
Account Director: Aitziber Izurrategui, Ben Prout
Account Manager: Yulia Prokhorova, Isabelle Udall, Elianne Vermeulen, Cecile Desmarest
Account Executive: Kinda Hamwi
Head of Design: Joe Burrin
Studio Director: Lizzie Murray
Studio Artists: Noa Redero, Cindy Kouwenoord, Danny van het Kaar
Interactive Designer: Gustav von Platen
Designer: Zeynep Orbay, Thomas Payne, Malia Killings
Project Manager: Gabriela Moreira, Saskia Van Zwieten, Loes Poot
Business Affairs: Kacey Kelley, Emilie Douqué, Michael Graves
PR Director: Claire Beesley
PR Manager: Reema Patel
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CANADA (Barcelona)
Director: MANSON
Executive Producer: Marta Argullós, Oscar Romagosa
EDITING: AMBASSADORS (Amsterdam)
Editor: Oscar Marmelstein
AUDIO POST: AMBASSADORS, 750 MPH, WAVE STUDIOS
Sound Designer/Mixer Wessel van Zijderveld, Sam Ashwell, Randall Macdonald
POST PRODUCTION: AMBASSADORS (AMSTERDAM)
Flame: Peter van Rij, Jeroen van Berkel, Bas Moonen
3D: Ambassadors
Colorist: Kurt van der Ploeg
Producer Gayle van Bochove, Lilian Kalkman
PRINT/OUT-OF-HOME PRODUCTION
Photographer: Yann Stofer
Production Company: Nevada Service (Barcelona)
Retouching: Loupe Imaging
FESTIVAL PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION COMPANY: MAGNETIC COLLABORATIVE LLC
Executive Producer: Brian Schultz, Sara Schulman