For several years, the share of portrait videos has been increasing not only in advertising, but also in music videos. Back in 2015, a music video in vertical format was published on Youtube by video producer Joe Avella. He justified his decision of the aspect ratio as follows: “I’m declaring that vertical video is now the future, and you better get used to it”. (Avella, 2015) For him, it was the increasing smartphone usage and in the wake of that, by promoting videos in social media apps. However, vertical format received a lot of bad feedback in the comments (Pibert, 2021).
Three years later, however, the advertising agency of Jörn Mecher and Philipp Wolff already placed the emphasis on the portrait format. They describe their decision as follows:
Mecher: […] Die junge Zielgruppe dreht ihr Handy kaum noch in den Landescape-Modus, die Screenlock-Rate nimmt immer mehr zu. Hochformat greift genau hier ein […]. Manche Formate sehen im 16:9 schöner aus, aber das ist ein subjektives Empfinden. Denn wenn ich den Fokus bereits in der Kreation auf das vertikale Video setze, clevere Winkel verwende, kann ich vieles ausgleichen […] (Wille, 2018).
Every year, the rate of mobile advertising through videos is increasing, and for example, the spending of moving ads in China has doubled, according to “China Mobile Video Advertising Research Report 2019”. Video advertising is mainly driven up by mobile advertising and vertical short video, according to the report. Vertical short video advertising is constantly in the focus of advertisers and is becoming a new form of video advertising (Yuan, 2020, 75-78).
A study by an American research institute found that 53% of the users surveyed do not use the horizontal screen to watch videos, which is roughly consistent with the author’s daily observation results. In real life, few people use the horizontal screen to watch videos, even if the vertical screen has black borders, they can’t enjoy the full-screen effect. This is because it is very troublesome to switch the vertical screen to the horizontal screen (ebd.).
From the above analysis, vertical screen display has been accepted under the influence of various habits and has become a well-known video viewing mode. At present, the short video social platforms around the world are based on this feature and introduce the full-screen vertical display technology to improve people’s viewing experience (ebd.).
According to the “Creative Guidance Manual for Vertical Screen Advertising,” the change of video from “horizontal version” to “vertical version” also reflects the change of user habits. This change is a shift in people’s acceptance of video advertising, from still scenes to horizontal video to vertical video. Physiologically, human hands can firmly grasp the vertical display design, while the horizontal display requires the help of both hands to maintain balance. The vertical screen allows users to hold the cell phone naturally, and they can record and view in a comfortable posture (ebd.).
In short video advertising with vertical screen, the user can also see the whole smartphone screen without intentionally rotating the cell phone, which will affect the user’s experience. According to the principle of preference or ratio in communication, the audience chooses the most suitable and labour-saving medium when selecting information (ebd.).
But vertical videos are not only present in advertising, but they are also already used more and more often in music videos. In general, it can be said that a new format is more likely to prevail if it can satisfy the central needs of the recipients better than an already existing one. However, in addition to being expressive, it should also address the emotional aspect so that an added value is recognizable. The platform has also evolved from classic music television channels such as MTV and Viva to the YouTube platform, where music videos are a very important genre. From the classic television, the consumption mainly changed so that the platform is mainly accessed via the smartphone, which is why it is considered the most dominant technology of the contemporary music video experience (Pibert, 2021, p.217-219).
Besides the already mentioned two genres there are others like mini biographies, news and TV shows, animated movies and others but there is not (enough) literature, or it is very hard to find.
Bibliography:
„Vertical video is the future“. Joe Avella/Business Insider, Youtube (14.08.2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz3Snlq1ADw (01.03.2021)
Wille, Antonia (06.08.2018): “Die Zukunft hat Hochformat“. LEAD digital. https://www.lead-digital.de/die-zukunft-hat-hochformat/ (10.10.2019).
Pibert, Johann (2021): Vertikale Musikvideos. Filmpsychologische Analyse der Wirkung des Hochformats in Lena Meyer-Landruts DON’T LIE TO ME. In: ffk Journal (2021), Nr. 6, s. 216-228. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/15859.
Yuan, Le (2020): Research on Advertising Communication of Vertical Screen Short Video under Mobile Media. Probe – Media and Communication Studies. 2. 75. DOI:10.18686/mcs.v2i4.1361