Canadians Will Now See Ads on Instagram

Instagram has added advertising to Canada, which is great news for advertisers but not-so-great news for Canadian users of the platform.

Initial advertisers include Air Canada, Target Canada, and Sport Chek, but you can bet you’ll be seeing dozens more very quickly due to the popularity of Instagram.

The company, which is owned by Facebook, promises that “ads have been designed to be seamlessly integrated with [the] experience” of Instagram, but in the end, ads are still ads.

“Instagram is a truly mobile branding platform, and we are excited to be one of the first brands to partner with Instagram in Canada,” said Michael Crotty, Chief Marketing Officer of Hudson’s Bay.

“The Instagram platform is both a great business and brand fit for us and we are excited to be one of the first brands to partner with them in Canada,” agreed Frederick Lecoq, Senior-Vice President of Marketing at Sport Chek.

Instagram, which is now four years old, boasts 200 million active monthly users. 60 million photos and videos are uploaded to the platform per day.

Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012.