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Instagram launches video ads today

Instagram launches video ads today

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Your Instagram feed is going to start having a new type of ad in it: videos. Starting today, Instagram is allowing advertisers to start running 15-second video ads that'll appear in your feed the same way that sponsored image posts have for almost a year now, according to Adweek. Instagram has reportedly been testing the videos for several months, so it's possible that you've already seen one, but video ads are widely launching today, beginning with spots from Disney, Banana Republic, Activision, Lancome, and the CW network.

The ads look really incongruous

Disney is promoting Big Hero 6 and Activision is promoting Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, both of which come out next week. The odd thing is that, unlike the photo ads for which Instagram has put so much effort into ensuring a coherent style with the type of images you would normally see in a feed, the video ads are basically just commercials. There's nothing Instagramy about them, and it's hard to imagine that they'll fit in. Banana Republic is the only one that gets close, running a silent time-lapse video of someone sketching a model.

Even with their incongruity, video ads are likely to play a major role in Instagram's continued quest to make money under Facebook. Adweek reports that Instagram's tools for advertisers are fairly basic, only allowing them to target video spots based on users' age, gender, and country. Still, it's starting with some big names — all of which seem pretty excited about being able to run video on Instagram. You can watch the ads for four of the companies over at Adweek.