A Different Perspective: Demystifying and Simplifying Vertical Video for Marketers

Executive Summary A Different Perspective: Demystifying and Simplifying Vertical Video for Marketers

April 2018

©2018 Mobile Marketing Association. All Rights Reserved. 1 According to a 2017 study from MOVR, users spend 90 percent of their smartphone time in vertical mode, and other sources say it’s even more – in fact, a report on Mobile Marketer last year said consumers use their phones vertically 98 percent of the time.

However, while online video ad spending, and mobile ad spending, both continue to increase annually by double digits, many marketers aren’t up to speed on the fact that vertical video now needs to be an ongoing component of their marketing efforts. This white paper, for members only, from the Mobile Marketing Association’s Mobile Video Committee, looks at:

• How and why vertically-based content consumption is increasing. • Ways to manage production of vertical video assets, when most video content is still horizontal. • What the media marketplace looks like for online vertical video. • Examples of how major marketers -- including McDonald’s, Kit Kat and Budweiser, are leveraging vertcial video now.

Vertical video is about much more than a shift in orientation. Though research on the topic is just now emerging, it indicates the power of its unique full-screen experience.

A recent study by Facebook showed that vertical video can produce an incremental increase in brand lift when compared with vertical that has a 1:1, or square, aspect ratio; other studies show a consumer preference for vertical video, and vertical video advertising, as compared with its horizontal counterpart. Additionally, recent developments – such as YouTube’s recent update of its app to better leverage vertical video could – underscore the shift.

Who Is Using Vertical – And How

Even though the trends toward increasing adoption of vertical video are clear, right now there are only a handful of marketing categories that have truly embraced it, the largest being major video content producers, such as Netflix and Disney. According to MediaRadar, the entertainment category makes up 38 percent of vertical video ad spend.

They, and the platforms where vertical has been most embraced– Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter – are pointing the way toward how marketers can leverage the format. Below are three of the eight best practices identified in the full white paper. (For more information on how to download it, click here.)

Be true to the platform your ad will appear in. While producing vertical video for vertically-oriented apps is one element of creating native content, effectively integrating your content into the experience doesn’t stop there.

2. Flip the Script.

Put branding at the beginning. While traditional advertising often calls for branding and logos to come at the end, in this context, it’s crucial to flip the script. Snapchat research on more than 5,400 Snap Ads in the U.S. revealed that two-thirds of brand awareness happens in the first two seconds of a video ad.

3. Find Creative Ways to Tell a Longer Story.

Understandably, telling your brand’s story in extremely short form may seem impossible. To tell a longer story, use formats in which users can swipe or click to find out more about your product, or take advantage of the ad models available on the major social platforms that allow you to create a narrative in the short moments that are in keeping with how people use their smartphones.

The full white paper contains specifics on how to use ad length, sound and how to use existing horizontal video assets in a vertical environment.

Media and Metrics: How Vertical Is Different – and How It’s the Same

The fact that vertical is an intensely native experience means that, in most cases, the strategy surrounding creative and media has to be thought out in tandem – and at the outset. Additionally, outside of the large social networks, scale can be an issue, since it can be difficult to buy vertical programmatically or achieve true scale across multiple publishers.

In regards to KPIs, they are no different in portrait mode than they are in landscape mode. That said, because of the full-screen experience, vertical may have outsized effectiveness when it comes to engagement. It’s worth wondering if vertical video inventory will come to be viewed as inherently premium, even though the jury isn’t in yet.

Wherever you are in the vertical and mobile learning curve, current trends in mobile consumption and the consumer preference for vertical orientation of mobile devices point in only one direction: that, in the future, vertical video will need to be a part of the creative toolkit for any marketer who uses video as part of their marketing strategy.

To get the complete white paper, consider becoming an MMA member.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the MMA Mobile Video Committee, and to the following MMA member companies who contributed mightily to this paper: AdColony, Facebook, Innovid, Jun Group, NBCUniversal, Snapchat and Twitter.

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The MMA is the world’s leading global non-profit trade mobile marketing association comprised of more than 800 member companies, from nearly fifty countries around the world. Our members hail from every faction of the mobile marketing ecosystem, including brand marketers, agencies, mobile technology platforms, media companies, operators and others. The MMA’s mission is to accelerate the transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile, driving business growth with closer and stronger consumer engagement. Anchoring the MMA’s mission are four core pillars; to cultivate inspiration by driving innovation for the Chief Marketing Officer; to build the mobile marketing capabilities for marketing organizations through fostering know-how and confidence; to champion the effectiveness and impact of mobile through research providing tangible ROI measurement; and to advocate for mobile marketers. Additionally, MMA industry-wide committees work collaboratively to develop and advocate global best practices and lead standards development. For more information about the MMA, please visit: www.mmaglobal.com.