BW Sunday Reads: Reels Make Marketing In Real World Easier

A new era of marketing has arrived with social media platforms rising to the top, creating consumer-brand connectivity. One of the popular features to be added to this is the Reels on Meta-owned platforms Instagram and Facebook, which is a new way of creating and discovering short-form videos on a global platform. With reels gaining popularity among content creators and brands, branded biggies are leveraging short-form videos, apart from numerous small businesses, connecting with users.

Today reels not only brings revenues for the big companies but also for the creators or influencers who act as the bridge between the brands and consumers. The entertaining and storytelling advertisement on reels influenced almost 77 per cent of people surveyed in India to buy the product or services after watching reels, claims Global Consumer Short-Form Video Survey by Factworks.

The reel’s popularity is not just limited to Instagram, Facebook also attracts the creation and sharing of the 90 seconds video, or the short video format. The move helps in the boost of product marketing in an engaging format further supercharging the brands’ businesses thriving creator ecosystem in India. 

This year Meta India even worked with leading brands across categories to determine the reach of the reels and impact on the brand’s businesses. Brands such as Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk, Meesho, Navi, Maruti Nexa, Snitch, Amazon Prime Video and Tanishq underlined reels advertising drove strong business outcomes across parameters such as ad-recall, message association, and conversions. 

Commenting on the same, Arun Srinivas, Director and Head of Ads Business for Meta in India said, “Our goal at Meta is to help businesses build for the evolving consumer behaviour and create a strong ecosystem for the future of digital advertising in the country”.

“The results so far demonstrate that the powerful combination of reels ads and creators can supercharge growth for brands and address their key marketing objectives”, Srinivas added.

Recently the country's leading carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, India also used reel ads for the launch of their latest car Fronx, partnering with creators and received an overwhelming response. Suresh Akella, Executive Director of Marketing at Maruti Suzuki India said, “Adding reels to our brand creative mix helped us connect to consumers in their own language, yielding an incremental lift in brand metrics like ad recall and campaign awareness”.

Aseem Sharma, Director, Head of Growth, Navi Mutual Funds said, “A lot of myths were busted for us when we used the combination of reels ads and creators that drove an 8 per cent reduction in cost per first-time transactions. The combination is powerful and unlocks massive business growth for brands”. 

Rana Handa, Chief Partnerships Officer at Rario a Digital Collectibles Platform said, "Instagram reels allowed us to engage with a broader audience and effectively promote our brand. Through visually compelling and creatively crafted reels, we captured the attention of our target audience and significantly increased brand visibility”.

Digital Influencers too have some interesting insights to share. Digital Creator Niharika NM said that Meta is encouraging better work. Reels are everywhere, and there are millions of eyeballs on the short-form videos that are developing an advertising ecosystem that viewers don’t skip as it’s not like a traditional kind of video ads spewing out information.

Viraj Ghelani, actor and content creator said that reels are redefining branding as a whole today, right from fashion, food and even movies every brand is approaching the platform for greater audience reach, it’s a new market in the process.

Another creator Ruhee Dosani said, no doubt Meta reels are larger than life reaching millions of people and providing an open platform for entertainment along with the business. It is creating a new career ecosystem, and I would like to mark myself as a reel baby with a super exciting career.