The Instagram photo-sharing service has 100m users worldwide. However, Instagram is more than just a photo app with fancy filters. Every user has access to a huge photo archive. For our client, SWISS, we created the first, genuine sales campaign on Instagram, a platform that has no official bookable advertising space.

With our ‘Instagram Takeover’ we succeeded in launching a sales campaign on a platform that, until now, has never had any official, bookable advertising space.

As the search actively originated from the user, we had practically no wastage. It was possible to make offers and booking opportunities available to interested users without the need for technical modifications. SWISS was therefore able to assert its claim to be the number one carrier for flights in and out of Switzerland in the social media arena too.

By choosing the more popular hashtags many potential customers saw the SWISS offers. The promotion was received positively by users. The offers were ‘liked’ and shared on other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The press and numerous weblogs also reported on the campaign. Without using a media budget we accessed new target audiences for our client, SWISS, as well as creating wider awareness of the brand. Although this was a sales campaign, through creativity and the unusual nature of the promotion, we succeeded in positioning SWISS within the social networks as an innovative and modern airline.