Notes from POV.

Points for Vertical Video

  • Zenith Optimedia "mobile devices will account for 58% of online watching worldwide in 2017" --> Although this is a press release from an ad agency.
  • Phones are kept in portrait mode 98% of the time (Mobile Marketer) although my bing search found a dead link (shown above), there are lots of other people mentioning this. gimbal.
  • In 2015 29% of videos watched by Americans are done while the phone is vertical, compared with 5% in 2005. Lots of powerpoints, this one appears to be from the authors of the report Internet Trends 2015 (Also in that same report, it found a 5x higher completion rate for vertical vs horizontal video ads). ("Ten years from now, when we look back at how this era of big data evolved ... we will be stunned at how uninformed we used to be when we make decisions." -- Bill Bosworth, DataStax CEO (2015)). (This trends report is actually quite valuable).
  • Millennials are 2x more likely to be focused on mobile video vs computer or tv video. Ooyala global video index 2014. Report highlights included: Tables had the best video ad completion rates, while most number of video ads served was still on PC.

Points against vertical video:

  • "Limited distribution [on desktop] because few other digital video sites display from that angle making it difficult to repurpose vertical content for a horizontal screen." -- attributed to Adweek but I could not find the actual article.
  • Black Bars when watching vertical on a horizontal player.
  • Human Visual System is designed for side to side (Attributed to WAR C, couldn't find reference).

  • Additional cost is required to make for both horizontal and vertical formats.

  • Mentions the term dark post in context of testing vertical and horizontal videos on a market.

People 'just don't rotate their phones' [Evan Speigel, Snapchat CEO an why advertisers that have been first to test-drive arketing on the app see a reported NINE TIMES ENGAGEENT when their ads are vertically oriented']

GARETT SLOANE, AD WEEK

Brand Examples:

  • AUDI: an ad about AUDI's involvement in Le Mans race. Using vertical video repurposed on Snapchat. Delivered a 36% completion rate which is 80% higher than normal. (although not 9x better!). Mobile Marketing.
  • TACO BELL: "Rush Order" ad on Snapchat achieved 74M impressiosn.
  • VIACOM: For the MTV movie awards had some back-stage content not available on TV. The engagement was 12M, higher than the 9.8M who view the MTV broadcast. variety la times. Used the live stories feature:

A Live Story is a sequence of photos and/or videos taken of a particular event or place that are curated by Snapchat and transmitted to its young-skewing global platform, which can drive tens of millions of eyeballs to that footage. Live Stories have been produced for everything from Coachella to presidential campaign stops, and some like “VMA” are becoming sponsored plays such as a weekly edition featuring Major League Baseball. - variety

Summary

I think that the references and links contained in this article are very interesting. It definitely expresses a positive point of view about the prospects for vertical video. I'm concerned that the 98% of the time quote source cannot be found, however, the results from the Snapchat campaigns suggest that there is some merit to it.

How easy it is to get good engagement on other advertising platforms such as Facebook or Youtube remains to be seen.