The 5 Best Things About Instagram’s Oscar Partnership With Vanity Fair

Who won the Oscars after parties? Without a doubt, it was Instagram and Vanity Fair, who teamed up with renowned Rolling Stone photographer, Mark Seliger, to release stunning, real-time shots of Hollywood’s favorite actors in an Instagram photobooth at the Vanity Fair after-party.

Call it whatever buzzword you want: a branded content campaign for Instagram, a social media play for Vanity Fair — it was simply brilliant. Check out a few of the best:

Ellen Degeneres and Portia De Rossi

Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow

Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak

There’s a lot to love about this content play, but here are five … because who doesn’t love a five-point list on Oscar Monday?

1) It helps Instagram establish itself as the classy, cool, aspirational photo-sharing app.

Instagram’s daily photo-sharing numbers — 50 million per day — may be trumped by the likes of WhatsApp (500 million), Snapchat (400 million), and Facebook (350 million), but this kind of content establishes Instagram as the photo app all the cool kids are using. Plus, these photos are absolutely gorgeous, and might even trick you into thinking that Instagram will turn you into Mark Seliger.

2) It introduces Vanity Fair to the post-Millennial generation. 

Generations of Americans have turned to Vanity Fair to gawk at gorgeous photography of beautiful people in exquisite clothing. The magazine never lost their touch, but a lot of Millennials and post-Millennials have likely forgotten how incredible their visual content is — or never discovered them altogether.

“We’re aiming to capture a little of the glamour of Oscar night in a timeless yet modern and accessible way,” Seliger said in a statement.

This was their Allow me to reintroduce myself moment, and they seized it.

3) This photo of John Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt.

If Mad Men doesn’t come back soon, I’m going to cry.

4) This is exactly the type of real-time content that people want.

It’s not hard to figure out why people tune into the Academy Awards. They want to see beautiful, famous people, in beautiful clothes designed by famous people. And they want to see them gathered together — that’s why Ellen Degeneres’ group selfie was the most retweeted photo of all time. They don’t want to see you try to hijack the Wizard of Oz tribute with a toilet wand.

5) Paul Rudd and Adam Scott arm-wrestling.

Never change.

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