Naver Webtoon to launch new short-form video service
Naver Webtoon is set to launch a new short-form video service called Cuts, designed to offer a new webtoon experience.
On Monday, the company unveiled Cuts via a special episode of the hit series "My Daughter Is a Zombie." With the film adaptation of "My Daughter Is a Zombie" slated to premiere Wednesday, the episode doubled as a cross-promotional effort, featuring characters from the webtoon teasing the movie while introducing the new Cuts platform.
According to the webtoon episode, Naver Webtoon will debut 'A Day in the Life of Ms. Kim Ae-yong' (translated), a slice-of-life comedy starring Ae-yong, the feline character from "My Daughter Is a Zombie," exclusively on Cuts. The series will follow the daily lives of the webtoon's family members, with the cat as the series' main protagonist. Additional original series by popular webtoon creators are also in the pipeline for the platform.
Slated to roll out in September, Cuts marks a shift from the traditional vertical-scroll webtoon format by offering webtoon series as short-form video content.
The move follows Naver Webtoon's earlier foray into short-form with the New & Hot feature launched in May on its North American platform. New & Hot focused on recaps of existing webtoons in a short-form format, whereas the upcoming Korean launch will blend both recap content and exclusive original productions.
Cuts arrives as Generation Z and young Millennial audiences — the core consumers of webtoons — increasingly turn to short-form video as their medium of choice. According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's 2024 Youth Media Usage and Harmful Environment Survey released in April, 94 percent of Korean students from grades 4 to 6 in elementary school, as well as middle and high schoolers, reported that they consumed short-form content.
In April, Kakao Entertainment also stepped into the format, launching Helix Shorts, which features AI-generated videos designed to promote webtoons on Kakao Page.
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