Instagram extends maximum video advert length to 60 seconds ahead of the Super Bowl with Drake ad
T-Mobile were one of the first firms to take advantage of the longer adverts
Instagram is increasing the maximum length of video adverts on the platform from 30 to 60 seconds, clearly after getting caught up in the advertising mania of this week's Super Bowl.
The maximum length of video clips that ordinary users can post will stay at 15 seconds, but Instagram's growing stable of advertisers will see their potential ad space doubled.
T-Mobile was one of the first firms to take advantage of the longer adverts, posting an extended version of its 30-second Super Bowl advert starring Drake to its official account on 3 February.
Warner Brothers is set to follow suit, planning to run a longer advert for its upcoming film How to be Single on the social network soon.
Instagram has built up a community of over 400 million users since launching in 2010, but it's only been capitalising on this success through advertising in the last couple of years.
First they allowed ordinary picture adverts, then scrollable tiles, and eventually video adverts in September last year.
As TechCrunch points out, advertising on Instagram is fairly difficult - users can just scroll past an advert if they don't want to see it, and if people do watch the video ads, many of them don't turn the sound on. So if advertisers want to reach Instagram's huge and young user base, they might have to rethink how they do things.
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