Snap the parent company of Snapchat says it is closely watching the next trend in the smartphone industry – a possible shift to horizontal screens.
At least two brands have announced that consumers can buy smartphones with foldable screens, bringing back horizontal screen size to reckoning.
“We are watching the space very closely. We are really excited about how vertical format is taking off. This is our core business, regardless what the device is,” says Rami Saad, head of international content partnerships at Snap.
Saad was in Dubai to announce the expansion of Snap shows into the region, where locally produced content in vertical `snap style` will be available to snapchat users.
Snap says local content first arrived in the region in May 2017, with 7 partners, rising to 9 in the same year. There would now be 32 shows from 20 popular regional brands. It also announced tie ups with new media partners who would be adding to the list of shows as well as publisher content to the platform.
Each Show averages five minutes in length with about 10 second frames that can be swiped like a magazine.
Snap users can find these shows through Discover – an inbuilt feature that was launched in January 2015 with 18 brand partners producing Publisher Stories. According to Snap today, it has over 100 brand partners globally.
Last month in an effort to increase its user base Snap announced that it is launching Snap originals – exclusive Shows with new episodes released every day.
“Our first slate of Snap Originals includes Co-Ed, a new comedy from the Duplass Brothers; Class of Lies, a mystery thriller from one of the minds behind Riverdale; and Endless Summer, a docuseries following rising stars in Laguna Beach — from Bunim/Murray, the creators of Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” it said.
*There are about 12 million daily users from across the GCC with Saudi Arabia alone accounting to about 9 million. There are about 1 million active users in the UAE,” added Saad.
The company plans to launch its ad platform in the region during the coming months – where companies can create six-seconds long vertical ads.
Brands, according to him are increasingly adopting to vertical ads, and the proof is pretty obvious for anyone who is closely monitoring the platform.
One local publisher says it today earns almost 25 per cent of its revenue from Snapchat.
Anas Abbar, Chief Executive Officer, 7awi that publishes Layalina Discover channel on Snapchat said, “Our existing engagement has yielded amazing results and interests for our audience and for 7awi as a publisher.”
In an effort to help publishers and brand managers to adopt to vertical format, the company has released a series of desktop and mobile tools.
In an effort to help customers reuse e their horizontal forms and convert them into vertical format, Snap last year released a new tool that allows publishers to customise their ads using Snap Publisher.
