Ben & Jerry’s managed to avoid the backlash that greeted with other early adopters of Instagram’s promoted account ad product

The ice cream men are scooping up new followers and amassing “likes” more than any company that has participated in the rollout of the first Instagram ads.

via Ben & Jerry’s Instagram Ads Drive Follows, ‘Likes’ | Adweek.

I don’t feel like the stories that were generated by this gave enough credence to the notion that it matters who the company is that’s doing the advertising. I mean this is Ben & Jerry’s, not a high-end jewelry company that only a small percentage of Instagram’s user base is going to have any immediate interest in. So, because it’s about ice cream, the content is going to be less of a startling difference from what is usually found in people’s feed.

Even the ads that received tons of negative pushback, though, saw huge network increases, meaning that for all the hand-wringing advertising still works pretty well as a fan acquisition tactic. That’s something Tumblr is also counting on as it introduces yet another mobile ad product for brands to take advantage of.