As the old Huey Lewis song goes "It's hip to be square". That's why we have created a square or tall version of our promotional videos for our clients, unless they didn't want them. We've been doing this for years.
Aspect Ratios
The screen capture above is your typical 16x9 aspect ratio - what you would expect in any regular video - as in this case the short video is on YouTube. The screen capture below is more of a 1:1 aspect ratio and made to work best from your phone, via the social media platforms of Instagram or Twitter.
To do this we copy the original project clips, graphics and music to a new project, and then move the subject matter of the individual clips around to better position them in the new, more constrained, aspect ratio. Then we do the same for any graphics and overlays, and ultimately re-render the video.
But why?
Yes - this is a small second project in itself, but the answer to why lies in a quick analysis of where and how your clients are looking at information about you - and up to 80% on average are seeing your content on their phones. A wide-screen version of your message is great when they have lots of screen real estate available on their projector, screen or laptop, but for consumption on-the-go, one would be using their phone - so the square (or even tall) format is more desirable.
In the quick example of Cardio Day (short video with screen capture images above and below) you can see the original wide-screen version, but if you click on the image below, then you get the squared version. For any promotional video - we recommend doing both. The incremental cost is small and then you can supply the right format for the right use case.
Give the people what they want? Absolutely.
