Three weeks into the FIFA World Cup, BeReal users who follow a national team get a phone notification the instant that team scores … and can capture a reaction in under three seconds using the app’s front-and-back camera. It’s the first time in BeReal’s six-year history that users can post as many times a day as they want. The activation has become the platform’s biggest live test yet of whether real-time, unfiltered reaction is something advertisers will pay for, not just something users enjoy.

Ben Moore has spent his career inside the platforms BeReal is trying not to become. Before joining BeReal as U.S. managing director in April 2025, he worked in ad partnerships and monetization at TikTok, Walmart Connect, and Dailymotion. That vantage point, he says, is why BeReal’s premise stuck with him.

“They’re building algorithms that are optimizing for vanity metrics and for time spent,” Ben says of the industry he came from. “When it comes to actually connecting with people, there’s no platform today that you can turn to.”

BeReal’s answer, according to Ben, is an app built around live capture rather than curation. Launched in Paris in 2019, the platform has no algorithmic feed, no filters, and no camera roll uploads. Users are prompted once a day to take a simultaneous front-and-back camera photo, capturing both what they’re looking at and their own reaction. The company says that format has helped it grow to more than 40 million monthly users, with the U.S., Japan, and France as its largest markets. Ben describes that format as “proof of human,” a way to demonstrate that a person, not an AI-generated version of them, was actually present in the moment.

The World Cup is where that idea gets its biggest public test yet. By temporarily removing its daily posting limit during live matches, BeReal is asking two questions at once: whether users want to share more often during major moments, and whether advertisers will pay to reach people at the peak of those moments rather than somewhere later in an endless feed.

The Ad Pitch Is Timing, Not Reach

Ben’s argument to advertisers rests on a single idea: a BeReal posted the second a goal happens carries more attention than an ad scrolled past in a feed. “Those brands can access audiences at the peak of their emotional engagement,” he says, arguing that people are more receptive to whatever appears alongside a reaction they choose to post in the moment.

BeReal cites an internal Nielsen study it commissioned, which the company says found the app drives strong ad recall and purchase intent. Ben attributes that to how people show up on BeReal compared with feeds crowded with ads. He describes the app’s ad environment as uncluttered enough that users aren’t accustomed to seeing ads there at all, which, he argues, raises engagement when they do.

Not every advertiser is convinced. Ben says some brands remain hesitant to test the platform, which he attributes to a broader industry habit. “We live in a world where reach is more important than meaning, and so quantity, especially in advertising, means more than quality,” he says. 

His answer to skeptical brands is to point them toward creators rather than static campaigns: BeReal reports that thousands of creators have joined the app across markets over the past six months, making branded content natively rather than posting traditional influencer content.

Static Photos Are Outperforming Video, Which Wasn’t the Plan

One result Ben didn’t anticipate: through the first half of 2026, pictures have been outperforming video across BeReal’s ad stack. “I was always convinced that a video was much more engaging because of the nature of the assets,” he says. “But no, on BeReal, people also like to click on static images.”

The pattern cuts against how most platforms sell advertising, and it says something about what BeReal’s users respond to: a single, unedited frame that looks like something a friend would post, not a produced spot. 

Ben points to a campaign for an unnamed quick-service restaurant chain as an illustration. On Instagram, he says that kind of campaign creative is “super filtered and polished and nice, but deep down you know the sandwich will never look like that once you get it at the store.” On BeReal, the same brand leaned into the opposite: showing what the food and the reaction to it actually looked like.

New Features Get Tested on Power Users Before Anyone Else Sees Them

BeReal’s pitch to users and advertisers alike depends on the app not becoming the thing it was built to replace. Ben says that philosophy constrains how the company ships anything new, including the World Cup features. 

“We always test on a small percentage,” he says, describing a process of rolling changes out to a cohort of power users first and checking whether they fit what people already expect from the app before going wider.

That caution extends to the posting limit itself. Ben’s view is that removing the cap doesn’t conflict with BeReal’s premise, so long as what people post stays unscripted. “It’s not because you post five BeReals every day that you’re being fake,” he says. “It’s just that you want to share more with the people that you’re connected with.”

BeReal’s Longer Bet Is on Proving a Human Was There

Ben’s ambitions for BeReal extend past ad recall numbers. He points to a growing anxiety among creators about AI-generated doubles appearing on other platforms, a concern he says came up repeatedly at Cannes Lions in June. In his view, that anxiety hands BeReal an opening it hasn’t fully used yet.

“I would love for BeReal to be the destination platform,” he says, describing his “proof of human”: a chance for creators to show it’s actually them behind a post, not an AI-generated stand-in, verified by a format that never lets them upload, filter, or fake it.

Whether that becomes a durable business depends on what BeReal does once the World Cup ends, and whether it decides unlimited posting outlasts the tournament. For now, Ben is treating the activation as evidence, not the endpoint. 

“There’s no other platform like BeReal to share that,” he says, “and to connect with audiences that are just happy to be living those moments.”

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