PlayStation has launched a campaign to promote PS4 games, including Spyro and Everybody’s Golf, using a ‘stories’ mobile ad format. The campaign is part of a partnership between TI Media, which is the publisher behind titles such as Marie Claire UK, NME, and TV Times, and mobile ad platform Picnic.

Using Picnic’s Stories format, PlayStation is the first brand to run a Stories campaign on TI Media platforms which includes video. Other brands amongst the first to trial the format include Microsoft, Betway, Tetley Tea, Ford, and Taylor Made.

“TI Media’s partnership with Picnic couples amazing mobile creativity with premium brand safe AMP inventory – engaging audiences with a familiar story format,” said Andy Sophocli, head of commercial innovation at TI Media. “With no ad fraud possible due to Google’s AMP page verification process, this provides the optimum advertising environment for any brand.”

Picnic’s Stories format is built for Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and has been designed very much in the image of the stories social formats found on Snapchat and Instagram.

The first TI Media campaign using the format came from Microsoft to support the launch of the Surface Go. According to Picnic, engagement rate was almost five times higher and dwell time over six times higher than the industry standard for similar mobile units.