YouTuibe is testing a new format with publishers for mobile devices. The company is now testing a new vertical ad format with advertisers that use TrueView, allowing them to advertise in an immersive way to customers on mobile devices, reports The Drum.

The new vertical ad is going to be a massive addition to YouTube for many reasons. First, people are watching videos more on their phones than ever before. In fact, more than 70% of YouTube’s watch time happens on mobile devices, and that’s a huge portion of users. So far, YouTube’s ads have only been limited to 16:9 videos or square videos, which didn’t really take advantage of the full-screen space on phone devices.

YouTube’s been working on better supporting videos with different aspect ratios for a little while, so the addition of the vertical ad format takes things a step forward. YouTube already makes the viewing experience for vertical models quite immersive on phones, and vertical ads work exactly like that. Instead of going full-screen, though, these videos will only take up part of your screen.

“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. And, they’re a great way to complement horizontal videos – we recommend adding both vertical and horizontal video assets to the same campaign for maximum Brand Lift impact,” the company said.

YouTube’s vertical ad format is going to be a big threat to Instagram’s IGTV platform, a video platform focused exclusively on vertical videos. Although IGTV is just getting started, the adoption from publishers has been quite disappointing, at least from what I have seen so far.

Tagged with IGTV, YouTube, YouTube Mobile