Say goodbye to 16:9 in a mobile first world — the rise and importance of vertical video

I’m going to start this article by telling you to go watch the video below now, ideally on your phone. Not only is it a beautiful video but it inspired this post.

Welcome back, hopefully you’ve watched the video by now, if not I’m sure you’ll still understand my ramblings.

Mobile first is a phrase we’ve all heard especially in the advertising and marketing circles. However mobile is still constrained to predetermined formats designed for the cinema and TV screens. I’m talking about 16:9, the widescreen format.

Day to day we all hold our phones roughly the same way, then turn them to watch a video and back again after. Rarely do we see vertical videos, unless it’s a dodgy shot candid video someone filmed on their phone. The real pioneers of this format are Periscope and Snapchat and it works so well, the later even encouraging makers to think vertically. As soon as we move away from platforms that dictate the new vertical video format and create fully edited ‘content’ (I hate that word) we go back to 16:9. Why do we do this? Because in the back of our minds we’re really thinking about how this might look on someone’s laptop. I’m guilty of this myself as a designer and creative, we always want people to see what we create in all its glory on the big screen.

“Mobile phones are vertical devices. Turning it sideways is a lot of work.” a quote from Troy Young, president of Hearst Digital

I look forward to the day where we could see vertical TV shows or Films from the likes of Netflix or Amazon. Video created purely for viewers on their phones, a Netflix exclusive for mobile. I don’t think it will ever be the standard especially as I’m a strong believer in using a method for purpose, not just the sake of it to jump on the bandwagon. But given the right opportunity with a video that’s narrative suits it, or is framed in such a way, maybe just maybe vertical could work.

I know for now vertical videos only work on certain platforms, straight away that dictates your use case but I think this will shift as media consumption habits continue to change. YouTube reports that over half of its views are now from mobile phones and Facebook even higher with 65% of video views coming from mobile phones.

To wrap this up, I’m asking everyone to give 9:16 (vertical) a go for 2016 and really think ‘mobile first’. There’s no saying this will definitely be the norm in years to come but I think a genuine opportunity awaits to do something cool and further dictate a new media consumption behaviour. Finally, props to Bluearth Production for creating a truly stunning video in this format that influenced this post.

p.s. I wrote this all on my phone, in portrait. Just sayin’.