Instagram Effects that Promote Brands or Products

AR effects can be a great way to promote brands and products on Instagram.

If your effect is promotional, you’ll need to let us know when you upload it to Spark AR Hub.

When is an effect promotional?

Two things determine whether an effect promotes a product or brand:

• The content of the effect itself.
• The Instagram account it’s being published from.

The content of the effect

An effect is promotional if it includes a:

• Brand name.
• Logo.
• Product name.
• Product image.

The Instagram account

An effect is also promotional if the Instagram account it’s being published from meets any of these criteria:

• The username or bio states the account is a brand or product.
• The account represents a group of people, like a sports team or band.
• The account is a business account.

If you’re publishing from a business account and aren’t promoting a product or brand, switch your account back to a personal account or convert it to a Creator Account. Your effect then won’t be considered promotional, unless it meets one of the criteria above.

An effect isn’t always promotional when the account publishing it:

• Represents an individual with a trademarked name - like Madonna.
• Is an artist or pseudonym that isn't a real name - as long as it's an artist or person and not an agency or group.

In these cases we’ll check the content of the effect, then decide.

Publishing a promotional effect

When you upload your effect to Spark AR Hub, you'll be asked to confirm whether the effect promotes a brand or product. You should tick the box if it meets the criteria for a promotional effect above.

If you're using a personal account with business features enabled, you don't need to check the box if the effect isn't promoting a business.

If you’re publishing from a business account, the checkbox will be ticked by default. You can only change this by converting the account to a personal account or Creator Account.

Where promotional effects appear

People can find promotional effects:

• Instagram Stories.
• In the Effects Tab of the Profile the effect is attributed to.
• Through links to effects.

They won’t appear in:

• The effect tray of the Instagram camera.
• The Effect Gallery.

Next steps

• Follow these guidelines to make sure your Instagram effect is approved.
• Choosing categories for Instagram effects.
• Creating effect icons.