Imagine an advert you just can’t draw your eyes from. It’s every marketer’s dream, and right now it’s come in the shape of a cinemagraph. Invented by photographers Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck in 2011, cinemagraphs are still photos with a minor or repeated movement. They’re published in either animated GIF format or as video, and combine the motion of video with the elegance of photography. A living photograph, if you will. They’re oddly hypnotic, and they arrest your attention when you scroll down your Facebook feed.
It’s no wonder that Facebook and Instagram want more brands to try them out. Some brands have already shared cinemagraph-style posts to Facebook including Stouffer and Coca-Cola. In April of this year the fashion brand Stuart Weitzman started using cinemagraphs in their campaign targeting 22-40 year old women:
The campaign used custom targeting tools which allowed women to see the cinemagraphs one week on Instagram, followed by a product ad the next week on Facebook. The cinemagraphs work particularly well with Facebook’s video autoplay, which allows the images to move without users having to click a button.
Why do they work? Yes, they’re visually hypnotic. But they’re also a great new medium for storytelling. For instance, look at this:
The cinemagraph allows us to see the world through another person’s point of view, to recreate that moment in which you focus on something and everything else disappears. The movement in the picture isn't there for the sake of it, it's specific and narrative-based. For a split second we become absorbed in someone else’s world. Take these two, boogying together in the centre of Tarantino’s dancefloor, oblivious to the rest of the still room:
Or this cinemagraph for Ecco Domani. You can practically hear the clink of glasses at this countryside dinner party and smell the grilled meat wafting gently across the grass. It’s atmospheric but also focuses specifically upon the product without feeling invasive. It’s so elegant and entertaining we feel like we’re experiencing a piece of art rather than an intrusive advert.
Plus, you can do amazing creepy things like this: