By Thomas R. Pearce, Sr. Director of Interactive UI/UX Strategy, Autodata Solutions
The insurgency of mobile traffic to automotive websites forced dealerships to become mobile compliant as the numbers crashed through the 50 percent mark in October 2016.3 Mobile-first websites are now the norm. And the next wave of the “Mobile-First” digital revolution is at hand, as we cross the threshold to the area of “Mobile-First Video.” It is a paradigm shift in automotive video advertising and a great opportunity for dealerships, agencies, and OEMs to make full use of the vertical mobile-first canvas.
After reading this article, my hope is, you’ll never look at smartphone use the same way. Around your environment, regardless of demographics, you’ll see people using smartphones in a particular manner. When developing new product strategies, my User Experience (UX) team assembles the best in class UX practices; user group, user studies, and heuristic evaluations, but you don’t need all that elaborate formality to see what’s happening with the utilization of smartphones.
Let’s ask ourselves a question right off the bat. How far in terms of inches or feet, do you think the average person scrolls on his/her smartphone each day on social media? Would you guess 5, 10, 50 feet or estimate something else? Well, the average American scrolls about 300 feet on social media every day.1 That’s about 21 miles a year. If we started today, in just one year, we can go from the Las Vegas Strip to the Hoover Dam. What that means is, there is some serious scrolling going on, and the vast majority of it is done vertically.
About nine years ago, during my daughter’s dance recital, I noticed parents recording the performance vertically, in a portrait mode on their phone. My heart poured out because I knew they would have those horrible side black bars when they playback the recital at home on their widescreen TV. I thought, eventually, they would figure it out, but nine years later people exhibit the same behavior.
A few weeks ago, I was in Motor City seeing my boys, the rock band KISS. I was backstage with, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Erik Signer, and Tommy Thayer. It was an awesome show, and even the picture backstage was taken vertically. During the show, I looked out in the audience and what did I see in Detroit Rock City? The audience recording and taking photos vertically in the portrait. This is what I want you to do when you’re out witnessing people using their phones, taking pictures, shooting video, and viewing video. It’s testament to how people use their phones, they prefer to use them in the vertical mobile-first position.
Lately, more-and-more fascinating data on mobile playback of video content is being released. According to The Denver Post, “72% of millennials said they don’t rotate their phones to watch videos horizontally.”4
There’s a good reason for these statistics. Long before smartphones, stone tools evolved to naturally fit in the palm of our hands. Our ancestors had to use them to chop some meat off a woolly mammoth or something, and it needed to do it as efficient as possible. From a 30,000 foot-level, when comparing stone tools to smartphones they are quite remarkably similar in shape.
There’s actual theory and science behind the dimension of both tools. Back in 1954, psychologist Paul Fitts released, “Human Mechanics and Aimed Movement,” which explained the theory of efficiency of movement plays in the ergonomics. In short, the way in which we held stone tools and hold smartphones, is most efficient in a vertical position. Basically, the concept states people want to achieve maximum productivity with minimum effort. To flip your smartphone horizontally to record or watch video is less efficient than vertical. Paul Fits predicted this, and ergonomics plays directly in the way in which people want to hold their phone in the most natural position.
Of course, smartphones were deliberately designed to fit naturally in a vertical position. According to Facebook, “The traditional horizontal format of video has been turned on its side. In fact, 94% of the time, people consume content on their phones vertically.”2
So, if users aren’t flipping their smartphones to watch videos, well then, it’s time for automotive video advertisers to flip their approach. Dealerships, OEMs, and their agencies should embrace this trend when producing videos and create videos with a mobile-first mindset, optimizing their video ads to the full glory of a 9:16 video aspect ratio (16:9 widescreen flipped on the side).
In response, advertising platforms like YouTube TrueView, Google DV360, Facebook/Instagram, TikTok and SnapChat have realized the dramatic trend and started coming out with new “mobile-first” video ad units. According to a Facebook study, People watch mobile-first vertical videos longer. This test showed the larger rendering of vertical videos in News Feed on mobile, found that people responded positively to this larger view—they were more likely to watch vertical videos for longer and with the sound on.5
Mobile-first ad units are on the rise. Take Facebook’s Collection Ads as an example; Not are they mobile-first, but mobile-only, demonstrating the focus. Surely, you’re accustomed to News Feed ads, but Facebook and Instagram have other ad formats created with the mobile-first mindset. For example, Facebook Carousel or Facebook Collection ad formats let car shoppers easily browse VIN inventory within a video ad. Each Carousel or Collection ad features a primary offer video with accompanying VIN-specific inventory images. When a car shopper taps on the video ad, they are seamlessly driven to your vehicle detail page (VDP).
Recently, YouTube announced the availability of mobile-first, vertical-video ads for YouTube’s TrueView and Universal App campaigns.5 According to Google; “Vertical video ads provide a big, beautiful canvas to deliver your message on mobile and allow engagement with your customers in a way that fits their viewing preferences.” You’ll start noticing more and more advertisers using a widescreen format flipped to 9:16. In a YouTube article, Hyundai embraced the new mobile-first video format and ran YouTube vertical video ads that resulted in a “33% percent lift in brand awareness and a nearly 12% lift in consideration.6” Strategically, YouTube recommends uploading different aspect ratios for each video campaign. For example, you might upload a standard 16:9 horizontal orientation for desktop or Connected TV (CTV) users and a 9:16 vertical for mobile users.
Naturally, it is more work to produce the various formats and dimensions. However, in this case, I’m a proponent of “the harder you work, the luckier you’ll get.” Some agencies will be apprehensive to take on the extra effort, but the results are irrefutable. Whether it’s video campaign on YouTube, Google, Facebook/Instagram, Snapchat, etc… it’s always a good idea to test and optimize for what you are trying to achieve. Set your goals and analyze your key performance indicators (KPIs) to see if your campaign is successful or if it needs to be tweaked.
Digital video advertising and new vertical video ad units can help your dealership standout from the competition and automotive manufacturers like BMW, Ford, and Jaguar are taking vertical video ads out for a test drive and the use is trending upwards.
Jaguar Vertical Video Example > | Ford Vertical Video Example > | BMW Vertical Video Example >
In your day-to-day life, watch people using their smartphones. Vertical mobile-first videos fit the natural position of a mobile user. As dealerships and automotive advertisers evolve to vertical formats, they will be responsive and mobile first, just like the websites in which they reside. If your analytics are showing your audience is watching a video ad on their mobile device then go mobile-first and optimize for all devices. Dealers and advertisers alike have been given a great opportunity. So, go… “flip your vid” and make full use of this beautiful mobile-first video canvas.
For more marketing insight, view more articles here: digitaldealer.com/trending-auto-news/
Sources:
1) http://www.netnewsledger.com/2018/01/01/average-person-scrolls-300-feet-social-media-content-daily/
2) https://www.facebook.com/business/news/three-tips-to-reach-car-buyers-with-mobile-first-video-ads/
3) http://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-and-tablet-internet-usage-exceeds-desktop-for-first-time-worldwide
4) https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/26/millenials-prefer-vertical-video/
5) https://m.facebook.com/business/news/upgrading-facebook-video-for-people-and-advertisers
6) https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9138237?hl=en
About the Author
Thomas Pearce, Sr. Director of Interactive Strategy for Autodata Solutions, is an award-winning digital interactive director, who has over 20 years in UI/UX digital video and web/mobile development, including 10 years in automotive. He has worked with many recognizable brands such as GM, FCA, Facebook, Google/YouTube, and Napster.
