Yes, hello to you over there reading this blog! I hope you didn’t mind my use of GIF to express my genuine excitement to be talking about GIF with you today.
You’ve seen these around—in text messages with your friends, family, and maybe even on work messenger chats like Slack.
GIFs, or Graphic Interchange Format, are these looping short moving pictures that became one with daily communications for many. Because GIFs express our true feelings better than words and emojis ever can with added personality, naturally it caught on. GIF is pronounced like ‘jif’ in case you were wondering.
Why has GIF become so popular? I’d thought you’d never ask. To simply put, these 6-second micro content packs way more information and reliability to help you express your message. Example:
How I feel on Monday morning
and if you ask me how the day went, I may just reply, this was me:
Aside from the entertainment aspect from the wonderful Neil Patrick Harris, you may notice that I did not create these GIFs myself. In fact, most users don’t.
GIFs come from the internet and searchable crowdsourced sites like Giphy where you can search or create GIFs by theme or tags. There is virtually every emotion and reaction you can find to express yourself by sharing a short 6-second engaging GIF in text, email, and messengers. The majority of the content come from existing popular TV shows or viral videos and sure is cool that the millennials can’t get enough of it. But those of you with a sharp eye for ads may notice from the carefully chosen GIF examples here, GIF is now no longer safe from those creative marketers and their clever product placement ads.
In the effort to take advantage of these massively sharable micro content for maximum organic reach early, brands such PepsiCo have strategically chosen GIFs as their advertising platform. Bubly, their new line of sparkling water, for example, created and uploaded numerous content specifically to be shared with the expressive NPH as the spokesperson of your feelings with a can of Bubly in the frame. Like a good social media strategy, GIFs have become a new way for brands to create content that blends seamlessly with the social context for an influential campaign that will grab your attention. By the look of it, all the cool kids will be drinking Bubly in no time! Cheers!
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