September 12 & 13 it was time again for one of the biggest online events in the world: DMexco. Stroom was there to get up to speed again on the latest developments in online marketing.
We had the opportunity to hear interesting and inspiring speakers on a variety of topics. From blockchain to brand safety and from storytelling to brain hacking, all topics were covered. In this blog, however, we will touch on the trend that was perhaps the most discussed during the event: the transition on mobile from horizontal to vertical.
It has been impossible to imagine daily life without the smartphone for some time now. The smartphone is used for more and more applications. People watch Netflix on the go, arrange banking and shop online. Incidentally, online shopping used to be something you do on the computer, but currently most online purchases are made on mobile. Why is this important for advertisers to know?
Young people are lazy
There are more differences in behavior on mobile than on other devices. One difference that is immediately noticeable is the screen. This is because it is vertical. If you advertise with a "normal" horizontal video then you only fill part of the screen. Now you can always view the video full screen by turning your screen horizontally, but here lies a problem. In fact, it turns out that 73% of young people do not feel like turning the screen!
This means that as an advertiser, you have to make your own adjustments if you want to offer the younger audience a full-screen experience. In other words, use vertical video. Snapchat quickly saw the importance of a vertical experience and is still very popular among young people. Since Instagram copied Snapchat's vertical features, this platform has become even more popular and there are more platforms for people to share vertical updates. This has led to an increasing number of vertical ad opportunities being added for mobile as well. Previously, we wrote about advertising on Snapchat and gave tips for advertising between Instagram Stories.
Scoop from YouTube
During DMexco, another interesting scoop was shared on vertical advertising. YouTube is going to add vertical video ads to its advertising options. This will allow you to show a vertical ad on mobile prior to watching a video. The details have not yet been revealed, but if this capability is in line with the current options then we can expect to be allowed to show longer ads on YouTube than is currently the case on Snapchat (10 seconds) and Instagram (15 seconds). Couple this fact with the many targeting options within Google/YouTube and the reach you can achieve on the platform makes this an interesting development.
The challenge now lies with advertisers. Developing a good vertical video is an art in itself. Parties that manage to do this well have great potential to win over smartphone users.
More DMexco
We saw and learned a lot more at DMexco, information we of course love to share! So keep an eye on our blog for more online news and learnings.