Ice cream king Ben & Jerry’s is jumping on the Instagram bandwagon with a new campaign that sees fan photos turned into local, physical advertisements.

To be part of the campaign, fans are asked to take Instagram photos that capture the mood ‘euphoria’ (not necessarily incorporating Ben & Jerry’s products), then tag them with #CaptureEuphoria. Twenty photos will be selected, between now and January, to be featured in local print, bus station adverts and billboards near the snapper’s home (which can be anywhere in the world).

The campaign’s first winner – Megan – saw her photo featured on the back of a local magazine that was handed out with scooped of ice cream in her local community. “It’s our way of saying thanks for the Instagram love,” the company said.

Indeed, Instagram is a fine platform on which to be loved. With more than 100 million users and Facebook’s recent claim stake, it’s an increasingly formidable tool in the savvy marketer’s arsenal.

The campaign will serve to boost Ben & Jerry’s Instagram army, which at 123,000 followers is respectable, but by no means enormous (Starbucks, for example, is a little shy of one million). More importantly, though, it will help to cement the company’s reputation as a ‘caring and sharing’ brand, giving something back to its fans in a quirky but tangible way. Social communities are asked time and again to engage with digital campaigns out of the good of their hearts, and interactions are largely kept in the ephemeral realm of ‘online’. By integrating the two, Ben & Jerry’s is making a positive impact on ‘real life’, establishing itself in the minds of consumers on the street and away from the computer screen – where the pockets of small change are jingling.