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Last year, rapper Lil Yachty made the unusual move of adding his 11.3 million Instagram followers to his Close Friends list on the app.
His fans were confused, wondering why a globally famous figure had invited them into an intimate circle. Lil Yachty posted on Instagram as if only his closest friends were watching, becoming one of the most talked about phenomena on the internet.
To this day, many of Lil Yachty’s followers haven’t realized that his strange behavior was part of an Instagram campaign promoting the Close Friends feature to Generation Z.
In an era when marketers are more aware of the importance of reaching diverse audiences, Instagram’s campaign resonated because it was “rooted in the community,” said Arinze Emeagwali, brand marketing lead at Instagram, at ADWEEK’s Social Media Week in New York on Wednesday.
“A lot of times in marketing, you’re marketing for yourselves… for awards or leadership. But it’s about always rooting it in the community and the consumer. I’m not too good to ask my 12-year-old nephew what he’s into,” Emeagwali said. “It’s not rocket science, but a lot of times we overthink it. I force myself to make it about the work and to fight for the ideas.”
However, that might be easier said than done, as what makes a good piece of creative work is subjective.
John “JP” Petty, global creative director at Wieden+Kennedy’s Bodega unit, said to eliminate that subjectivity, his team asks themselves three questions: “Can our people see themselves in this work? Can they make it their own? Does it provide a social currency, if you will?”
Work like the Lil Yachty stunt, or Nike’s “Yardrunners” program by W+K that celebrates HBCU students, ticks those boxes because it gave the diverse communities for which it was intended for a seat at the table, Petty said.
Inclusivity may have become a marketing buzzword or fallen down the list of some companies’ priorities, but Petty argued that such campaigns, including “Yardrunners,” continue to see business results.
Making such inclusive work successful “takes leadership and people in the building willing to advocate for that,” he said. “A commitment to the community is super important. The users remember that—it means everything to them.”
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