“When we say ‘native advertising,’ what we mean is somebody searches for something like ‘fun’ or ‘happy,’ and having the ability to have product placement in those gifs that feels very natural and something that someone may select, but it’s also a way to get a brand front-and-center in everyday discourse. Those are the things that I’m sure the team will continue to explore.”

With new partnerships with OpenAI, LG AI Research and Meta around its data and image libraries, the company also believes the evolution of generative AI will impact Giphy’s own future library.

“We’re in the business of helping marketers, advertisers and creators tell their stories. And so there’s a whole host of capabilities that we are exploring right now that allow anyone to make our library infinitely customizable,” she commented.

The ad industry’s view

The use of Giphy as an advertising product is not widely featured as part of the content strategy.

“It’s not discussions we’re having with clients unless they’ve got some revolutionary product that we can’t envisage, then I would be guessing what that is going to be,” commented Allan Blair, head of strategy EMEA for VaynerMedia.

He did admit that memes were still “a big part” of social media marketing and internet culture but added that clients were cautious about introducing them in their own communications due to copyright issues.

As to how it may be fair as a display advertising platform, Andrew Spurrier-Dawes, EMEA Head of Precision at Wavemaker, said that Giphy faced challenges.

“The first is that the user is not on a social network, and so not there to browse, but instead searching for a specific gif. This means that the attention/engagement rate will be low as it is a drop in and out type of library rather than a publisher, where the dwell time will be higher. It will be tricky to increase dwell time without being interruptive,” he explained.

“Secondly, gifs are at the heart of pop culture, where certain gifs can be on a trend for a short burst before the next gif comes along. This means a really tight approach to brand safety and content control is critical to offering advertisers a space they know that will be relevant and appropriate for their brands—and not stealing their content if they are an entertainment brand.”