BeReal and brands—how marketers are using the anti-Instagram

Social media app BeReal is quickly becoming the latest internet craze despite having no filters, no short-form video and no ads. And yet, brands like Chipotle are already experimenting with how they can “be real” with their customers.

BeReal bills itself as “Not another social network;” the platform centers around connecting with friends for two minutes every day. The app sends out a push notification—⚠️ Time to BeReal ⚠️ —to all users at a different time each day; users then have two minutes to take a photo of themselves and what they’re doing at that moment. Once uploaded, they can see their friends’ photos as well. If pictures are uploaded outside of the two-minute mark, they are slapped with a “late” label. 

Brands that want to try out the app—which has been dubbed the anti-Instagram—are also subject to the two-minute notification. “It’s a hurdle that makes BeReal so interesting to experiment with,” said Tressie Lieberman, VP of digital marketing and off-premise at Chipotle. The restaurant has been on BeReal since April, posting promo codes in their photos. The first 100 customers to use the codes in the app or online received a free entree. The codes were redeemed in less than a minute after posting, according to Lieberman. The brand recently posted a BeReal of a Chipotle employee in front of a “Buy the Dip” billboard in Times Square.

“We see a massive opportunity to highlight our brand’s transparency in fun ways for our fans on BeReal and engage Gen Z,” Lieberman said.

Still, the app will challenge brands that want to be part of the trend. “Since it's all about authentic capture, it feels more like a creator play,” Danisha Lomax, senior VP and head of paid media (West) and national paid social lead at Digitas wrote in an email. “But I do think brands that are open to sharing behind the scenes—maybe a beauty brand wants to showcase ingredients. It could be interesting as a collaborative social strategy ... No gimmicks though, just BeReal.”

In the current ecosystem of brands, ads, celebrities and influencers, the app’s focus on a circle of friends seems to be resonating. The app has been installed 20 million times, according to Sensor Tower, with 7 million of those installs happening in the U.S. BeReal has been in the top slot in the free app category in the Apple app store for weeks.

Founded in 2020 by French developer Alexis Barreyat, the app started gaining traction this year on college campuses and then got a boost from TikTok. One TikTok of a girl trying to post her BeReal at a Harry Styles concert received over 5 million views.