An absolute fascinating read and data crunching from Ogilvy & Mather’s social team, with Kristen Rodriguez and Robert John Davis, Executive Director of Strategy for Content and Social. Highlights:

• Mobile devices will account for 58% of online video watching worldwide in 2017, according to ZenithOptimedia
• Phones are kept in portrait mode 98% of the time, according to Mobile Marketer
• 29% of the time Americans spend watching video now occurs vertically, 5% in 2010, KPCB 2015 Internet Trends
• Vertical content receives completion rates 9x higher than horizontal counterparts, Snapchat
• Millenials are twice as likely to be focused on video they watch on their mobile devices as they are on video consumed on a TV, Ooyala Global Video Index Q4 2015

Audi – Audi has launched several campaigns using vertical media on Snapchat. In 2015, an Audi campaign around the brand’s involvement in the Le Mans race, a 24-hour race of endurance in France, “delivered a 36 percent video completion rate, which is 80 percent higher than automotive benchmark at Celtra, the ad tech partner on the effort.“ (Mobile Majority). The campaign repurposed TV assets by cropping them to the vertical aspect-ratio while also shortening them to 8-seconds.

Taco Bell – Taco Bell leveraged Snapchat to film a 4-minute short film called “Rush Order” starring Vine and Snapchat influencers during the 2014 MTV Movie Awards to announce the new Doritos Locos Taco. The video achieved 74 million impressions and the brand doubled its number of followers in just one day.

Viacom (below) – For the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Viacom partnered with Snapchat for a Live Story that drew on content from users who were given exclusive access. In addition to sponsoring the story itself, they also produced four 10-second ads shown during the Live Story. Over 12 million viewers tuned into the content, exceeding actual broadcast viewership of 9.8 million.