Vertical Cinema in the Transformation of Digital Promotional Media for Top Coffee Products in the Mobile Viewing Era

Abstract

The shift in screen orientation from landscape (16:9) to portrait (9:16) format has driven a fundamental change in how audiovisual content is produced and consumed in what is now known as the mobile viewing era. This phenomenon, widely recognized as vertical cinema, is not merely a technical change in frame ratio but constitutes a new cinematic language that restructures spatial composition, editing rhythm, and viewer engagement psychology. This study aims to analyze how the principles of vertical cinema are implemented in the digital promotional campaign of Top Coffee through a vertical micro-drama series titled "The Drama at Cafe Di Sachetto," aired on the YouTube Shorts channel @TopCoffeeIndonesia. The analysis was conducted using a qualitative-descriptive approach combined with quantitative analysis of engagement metrics (views, likes, comments) across five episodes (Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 Part 1, and Episode 4 Part 2). The resulting findings were subsequently elaborated through an examination of five pillars of vertical cinema: (1) vertical spatial composition, (2) cinematic language and pacing, (3) hook strategy and attention economy, (4) the shift in promotional format from conventional TVC to serial micro-drama, and (5) native product placement. The findings reveal two distinct patterns of audience engagement: an organic emotional engagement pattern dominating the early episodes, marked by a 46.81% decline in likes from Episode 1 to Episode 2 and a 52.00% decline from Episode 2 to Episode 3, and a massive algorithm-driven reach in Episode 4, which recorded over one million views yet exhibited a very low rate of active interaction. These findings confirm that the effectiveness of vertical cinema in the FMCG context depends on the balance between emotional narrative structure and platform algorithmic optimization. This study contributes theoretically to digital marketing research on short-form video and offers practical implications for coffee industry practitioners in designing more effective vertical content.