“Unboxing” Videos and Market Segmentation
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/11/19/as-unboxing-explodes-on-youtube-brands-look-to-ride-the-wave/
With the growing attachment of consumers to social media, companies are becoming more and more pressured to advertise using popular media sites such as YouTube and Facebook. Social media is a great vessel to connect companies to the right kind of audience. On YouTube, for example, it makes sense to run a Maybelline mascara commercial before the video of a makeup haul, and it makes even more sense to advertise online guitar lessons before a video teaching the chords of Jason Mraz on guitar. YouTube and its specialization of video content make hyper targeting much easier than traditional methods such as billboards and newspaper advertising.
One specific category of YouTube videos is “unboxing”. These videos show consumers opening brand new items, from electronics and toys to clothing and makeup. Unboxing videos have become more and more popular, and Google says that there are more than 20 million search results for “unboxing” on YouTube, and a fifth of consumers have seen unboxing videos. With the growth of these videos (their views have grown 57% this year), Google realized that this is an excellent way to target a very specific audience. This year, Google is selling advertisers slots before these videos.
These slots are potentially very valuable, since Google’s research found that 62% of people who watch unboxing clips are also looking for a potential product purchase. People watching unboxing videos have an interest in the object being unboxed, and most of them do not own that object yet. Advertisers have realized this as well, and more and more advertisers are trying to run advertisements directly before an unboxing video. This is good for advertisers because more people will be interested in their advertisement, good for YouTube because they can sell these slots for higher prices because of the bigger demand, and good for consumers because they are shown advertisements that they genuinely have an interest in. Specifically on YouTube, where advertisements are often charged per click, the slots (if occupied by the right company) are likely to receive more clicks and thus be more valuable to the advertiser.