Instagram spent years telling creators that short wins. Now it is testing uploads of up to 90 minutes. For brands, the Instagram long form series changes what you buy: you are no longer paying for a glance, you are paying for attention that lasts. Producing 90-minute creator video for retention, not just reach, means rethinking briefs, budgets and measurement.
What Instagram is actually testing
The format is called Features. According to Tubefilter’s report on the announcement, Features lets creators publish horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has tested it with long-form creators in Brazil and plans to expand to “tens of thousands of creators” in the U.S. over the coming months.
The companion tool matters just as much. Clips as Reels lets a creator cut short segments from a long upload and post them as standalone Reels, and those clips automatically link back to the full video. Tubefilter also reports that Instagram plans to recommend these clipped posts on Explore and elsewhere on the platform.
Instagram’s own framing is a TV-style experience. TechCrunch notes that viewers can save the longer video and send it to the Instagram app on their TV. Podcasters, comedians and interview shows are the obvious early fit.
Reels is the trailer. The 90-minute upload is the film. Brands that only measure the trailer will miss where the sponsorship value now sits.
Why retention beats reach for brand budgets
Reach tells you how many people saw a logo. Retention tells you how many people sat with your message long enough to remember it. Those are different products, and they price differently.
A viewer who spends 40 minutes with a creator has sat through your integration, your demo and probably your offer code. A viewer who scrolled past a 12-second Reel has not. That gap is why long-form deals on YouTube have commanded premium rates for years.
There is a catch, and you should price it in. Monetization on Instagram is unsettled. TechCrunch quotes Meta as saying it is “too early to share a long-term monetization model.” It also reports that Mosseri has said creators on Instagram are paid primarily by brands. So your sponsorship dollars may be the main revenue a creator earns from a Features upload. That is leverage for you, and it is also a responsibility. Pay for the work, not just for the test.
The tradeoff nobody mentions in the pitch
TechCrunch reports that Mosseri has said shorter content like Reels drives more shares and DMs. Long form will probably drive fewer of those. If your current KPI is shares, a 90-minute video will look weak on paper. Change the KPI before you sign the contract.
How to structure 90 minutes so people stay
Ninety minutes is not one video. It is a series of chapters that each need a reason to continue. Brief it that way.
- Front-load the promise. The first two minutes should say what the viewer gets and why it is worth staying. No long intros, no logo stings.
- Segment into 8 to 12 minute blocks. Each block should have its own mini-arc, so a viewer who joins from a clip lands somewhere that makes sense.
- Spread sponsor moments. Do not stack the ad read at minute three. Place one native integration early, one in the middle tied to a topic, and one near the end.
- Plan pattern breaks. A guest, a demo, a cold open for the next segment, a change of location. Anything that resets attention.
- Write for the TV screen. Horizontal framing, readable on-screen text, audio mixed for a living room.
Long-form viewers will not tolerate a wall of promotion, so the product has to earn its place in the story. If your creator hosts a format where products appear naturally, such as a branded cooking series or a live Q&A, the integration reads as part of the show. If the creator is a talking head, work the product into a segment they already own.
Do not brief a shorter video and stretch it
This is the most common failure. A team takes a 60-second script, pads it, and wonders why drop-off hits at minute six. Start from the creator’s existing long-form rhythm and fit the brand into it. You are renting their pacing, so respect it.
Clips are the funnel, so brief them like one
Clips as Reels is where reach and retention finally connect. A strong clip pulls a cold viewer into the full episode. A weak clip wastes the chain.
Decide before filming which moments become clips. Brief the creator to mark them during production, not to hunt for them in the edit later. We cover the mechanics in our guide on briefing clip hooks, and the principles carry over from pattern interrupt text overlays: the first second of a clip has to earn the second.
A practical clip plan for each episode looks like this:
- One clip built around the creator’s strongest opinion or story, with no product in it.
- One clip built around the sponsor segment, framed as a useful answer to a real question.
- One clip built around a guest or surprise moment.
Keep the sponsor clip honest. If it feels like an ad cut out of context, viewers will skip it and the creator’s trust takes the hit. A sharper approach is to add a prompt that starts a conversation, which is the logic behind comment bait hooks done properly.
Disclosure and rights across 90 minutes
Long runtimes create compliance risk that short Reels never did. One disclosure at minute two does not cover a sponsor mention at minute 70, and a viewer arriving through a clip may never see the opening at all.
The FTC’s Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers sets out the basics for video endorsements. For an endorsement in a video, the disclosure should be in the video, not only in the description. It also says viewers are more likely to notice disclosures made in both audio and video, and that for live streams the disclosure should be repeated periodically. A 90-minute upload behaves much more like a live stream than a Reel in this respect, so repeating the disclosure at each sponsor moment is the safer reading.
Build this into the brief:
- Spoken and on-screen disclosure at every sponsored segment, not once at the top.
- Disclosure inside every clip that contains a sponsored message.
- Captions that carry the disclosure for sound-off viewing (see our notes on briefing captions).
- Written approval rules for any claim made off-script, since an unscripted conversation can drift into claims you cannot substantiate.
Rights deserve the same attention. If you plan to run a clip as paid media, the contract has to say so. Our checklist on whitelisting permissions applies directly, and you should extend usage terms to cover both the full episode and its clips. Music is another trap in a 90-minute file. One uncleared track at minute 51 can pull the whole episode.
Measuring what you bought
Do not report views alone. A 90-minute video with strong retention can have modest view counts and still outperform a viral Reel for your goals.
Ask for these from the creator, and agree on them in the contract:
- Average watch time and the retention curve, with the sponsor segments marked on the timeline.
- Clip-to-full-video conversion: how many viewers of the clip went on to open the long upload.
- Drop-off at each sponsor moment, compared with the segments around it.
- Downstream actions: code redemptions, landing page visits and branded search lift.
Because this is a test, treat the first campaign as a learning budget. Run one creator, one series, and a fixed set of clips. Compare the cost per engaged minute against your Reels programs before you scale.
Also consider discoverability beyond Instagram. Long, chaptered video is more useful to search and AI systems than a short clip, which is why formats described in our piece on shoppable video chapters are worth borrowing here, even before Instagram settles its tagging options.
Treat a Features upload as a content series with a measured attention budget, not as a long ad. Brief the chapters, the clips and the disclosures together.
Your next step: pick one creator who already holds an audience for long-form content elsewhere, and brief a single three-episode pilot with sponsor markers, a clip plan and disclosure at every integration.
FAQs
How long can Instagram videos be under the new long-form test?
Instagram is testing a format called Features that allows horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes. It is currently in limited testing, starting in Brazil and expanding to a small group of U.S. creators, so availability will vary by account.
Will creators be paid directly for long-form uploads?
Not yet. Meta has said it is too early to share a long-term monetization model, although it is exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, fans and Instagram. For now, brand partnerships are likely to be the main income source, which gives sponsors both leverage and a duty to pay fairly.
What is Clips as Reels?
It is a tool that lets creators cut short segments from a long upload and post them as Reels. The clips link back to the full video, so they work as a discovery funnel into the longer content.
How often should a creator disclose a sponsorship in a 90-minute video?
Disclose at every sponsored segment, in both audio and on-screen text. The FTC advises that disclosures in video should be in the video itself, and that live streams should repeat the disclosure periodically. Applying that logic to a long upload is the conservative approach.
Should brands replace Reels with long-form video?
No. Reels still drive shares and discovery. Use long-form for depth and retention, and use clips to feed it. The two formats work best as a pair.
What metrics prove a long-form sponsorship worked?
Look at average watch time, retention around sponsor segments, clip-to-full-video conversion and downstream actions such as code redemptions. View counts alone will understate the value of a highly engaged audience.
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