Flipboard starts showing vertical video ads

Flipboard today has added support for vertical videos ads enabled through its redesigned Cinema Loop product. When using these ads, brands will see their 3 to 10-second animated GIF-like “teaser” clips extend edge-to-edge on the screen and link to the actual TV commercial or video in portrait mode.

Launched last year, Cinema Loop video ads is a product designed to not only provide a teaser for a brand, but to also repurpose existing creative assets and television-quality commercials that marketers are using elsewhere. Realizing that we’re in the Snapchat era of video-consumption and that smartphones dominate, Flipboard has retooled its product to include support for vertical videos, which should feel more native to people who watch videos through Flipboard’s app.

“More and more video production is being filmed and edited for vertical viewing on mobile phones. This optimized mobile video production allows for easier viewing and higher engagement with mobile viewers. These vertical video assets now have a home on Flipboard,” said Nicole McCormack, head of advertising strategy at Flipboard.

In addition to this updated offering, Flipboard has increased the length of videos. “Brands shouldn’t be afraid of loading longer format videos into Cinema Loop placements,” the company said in a blog post, though it declined to share the new length restrictions.

Vertical videos represent another effort to bring quality placements to the publishing platform started by CEO Mike McCue. As he told VentureBeat earlier this year, the goal of Flipboard, in terms of advertising, is to be aspirational, emotional, and immersive, and to tell a story.

Not everyone will be able to purchase Cinema Loop ads. When they launched in August 2015, interested brands had to contact Flipboard to request placement. It’s likely that this is still the case, as the company hasn’t launched a self-service model yet.

Flipboard shared that distribution company Bleecker Street was the first advertiser to use this new video ad format — to promote the new World War 2 film “Anthropoid,” out in theaters on August 12.