It's kinda interesting to see how advertising is evolving. I'll mindlessly scroll Instagram reels once in a while and every other reel is an ad with the sponsored tag, with an obvious thing being sold and advertised. A fair amount of non-"ads" are influencers or celebrities promoting a product on their personal IGs with the #ad.

It's like advertising and social media are slowly merging together.

I couldn't say how effective it is. Who knows how much they paid that influencer and how much revenue it drives. But it sure is common.