Instagram users in France could soon see their photos on digital billboards courtesy of the app’s first-ever advertising campaign.
Beginning this summer, the French publicity campaign will also incorporate community-sourced images into its online ads, and in movie theater promos.
The initiative is being launched in time for the UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament, which France is hosting. The month-long tournament has already received a major digital push from cellular carrier Orange, including a project to light up the Eiffel Tower using surveys of social media posts.
Instagram’s parent company Facebook claims that the campaign will run throughout summer, reports French daily Les Echoes. The head of Facebook France, Laurent Solly, describes it as “a way to celebrate our Instagram community, [which is] very active in France.”
The French agency behind the ads claims it was directly inspired by the content on the app. Instagram currently boasts a user base of 5.8 million in France, and over 400 million worldwide.
Although the “very visible” campaign’s budget has not been disclosed by Facebook, the company claims that it will be “significant.”
Despite boasting solid mobile advertising revenue growth, Instagram has pushed through a number of major changes this year. Last month it introduced a design overhaul, including the launch of a new logo, and just recently it rolled out what has turned out to be a divisive algorithmic timeline.
The new advertising campaign, alongside the updates, is part of a larger promotional drive from the app in light of the growing competition from rival visual media platform Snapchat. The latter is currently grabbing the limelight due to a spike in its daily average users.
