Meta has opened Trending Ads for Instagram Reels to all advertisers, placing brand ads next to culturally relevant Reels. Early tests show brand awareness lifts of up to 20%, but proximity to a trend only works if your creative earns attention.
Relevance used to be about who saw your ad. Now it is about what your ad sits next to.
Meta has opened Trending Ads for Instagram Reels to all advertisers. The format places your ad directly alongside the Reels that are spiking in culture right now, and early tests point to brand awareness lifts of up to 20%.
The idea is simple. Instead of running creative against broad interest targeting, your ad rides next to the content people are already talking about. Meta frames it as a way to buy cultural relevance rather than just reach. It sits alongside a wider Meta push into AI ad tools and new audience filters that let brands build retargeting audiences by engagement frequency and recency.
Why it matters
For Australian brands this is a chance to look current without a big production budget, but proximity to a trend is not a strategy. If your creative is weak, sitting next to a viral Reel just means more people see weak creative. The brands that win short-form are the ones already making content people want to watch. If you are not crushing your own Reels, a trending ad slot will not save you.
Meta's early tests show Trending Ads on Reels can lift brand awareness by up to 20%
What to do about it
Check your own organic Reels first. If they flop, fix the creative before you pay to amplify it.
Match the ad to the trend's tone. A hard sell next to entertainment gets skipped.
Set brand safety rules. Trending content moves fast and not all of it suits your brand.
Measure lift, not just impressions. Awareness only counts if it shows up later in branded search and direct traffic.
Pair it with the new frequency and recency filters to retarget the people who actually engaged.
Cultural relevance is rentable now. Whether it works still depends on whether your creative earns the attention.