Marketers from time and again have always quested for new ways to reach their target audience. They have used different mediums such as print, radio, television and online. Additionally, have also ventured into strategies like below the line (BTL), public relations (PR) and word of mouth(WOM). Consequently, Inspirational quotes like “One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.”(Rohn, 2014) “make the customer the hero of your story” (Handley and Chapman, 2011) have seemed to become the beliefs of today’s marketers. They have hence searched for appropriate mediums, to connect with their consumers and one such tool found by marketers is the haul videos on YouTube. But, through this blog I have tried to illustrate that haul video are just a fad and not a new marketing communication tool that marketers could use to promote for a long time.

YouTube was founded in the 2005 and in 2007 it came under the Google’s brand umbrella. It is video streaming platform. Popularity of YouTube has reached to an extent where every second, a hour long video is uploaded on YouTube (Mashable, 2014). YouTube encourages vloggers to create more content (Bloggers who create blogs in the form of a videos) by making them partners and paying them a price, when their video is at least subscribed by a thousand viewers (Youtube.com, 2014). The uniqueness and popularity of YouTube has paved way for new marketing opportunities and one of them is through Haul videos.

Haul videos on YouTube are video recordings; showcase vloggers recent purchases like clothing, accessories, footwear and cosmetics. However, the main inducement in these videos are the confident pretty women and men, giving their personal opinions and reviews about the quality, price, discounts and the latest trends launched by the brands. Some haul videos are also elaborated by having supplementary links to videos of a look book; featuring the different ways an outfit can be worn and accessorized. The vloggers also try to entertain their viewers by dramatically expressing their opinion and also by having video graphics.

These hauls videos can be broadly categorized into, seasonal such as winter haul, fall haul and spring haul. Secondly into holidays or festive hauls such as Christmas haul, Easter haul, thanksgiving haul and Halloween haul. Thirdly, individual or collective brand hauls for example, H&M and Zara haul and lastly it can be classified based on discount period like Black Friday and Boxing Day. According to these categories the brands also vary for example Lush cosmetics hauls are usually recorded during holidays as lush introduces their new range of cosmetics seasonally or during Boxing Day. Today, millions of YouTube viewers subscribe to these channels in order to keep them updated with latest video from their preferred vlogger. Some popular haul vloggers, manage to attract millions of views on every video within a very short period of time. For instance YouTube’s popular Blogger, Bethany Motta’s may 2014 spring haul video, has received around one million views in just two weeks of time.

In a article written for Business insider, Alex (2014) has credited these haul vloggers as superstars of the era. According to a study conducted by business insider on YouTube vlogger Bethany Mota, they have stated that she is more popular than many big brands like Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan. For instance on YouTube she has around six million and odd subscribers where as big brands like Marks and Spencer’s, Clarks shoes, New Look, River Island have lesser than ten thousand subscribers. Similar to Bethany there are many other Haul vloggers like Michelle Phan, Zoella and Bunny Meyer (GRAV3YARDGIRL), all of these YouTube vloggers have approximately more than a million subscribers. From my observation most of the vloggers charm the viewers by proclaiming themselves to be best friends of the viewer also some of them even have attractive prizes for subscribing their video’s. As a viewer of their videos, I sometime presumes to know these vloggers personally, may be its due to their personalized communication. For instance, Michelle Phan invites her subscribers to think of her as their beauty best friend. Likewise, other YouTube vloggers also greet their subscribers as friends and by constantly engaging and building strong relationship with them through social mediums like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. When questioned, Bethany’s fan Meleina McCann why she likes Mota’s video, she said ”she is very relatable and personal”. In my opinion this sort of admiration and relationship has not only gained the vloggers the status of a celebrity but also has given them a repute of a trusted peer whose opinion and style are highly regarded. (Halperin.A, 2014)

The trend of Haul video seems to be a revolutionized phase of the theory Conspicuous consumption, which was introduced by economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1899). He describes conspicuous consumption as a behavior of a group of consumers belonging to all social classes, who like to display their consumption and leisure as a means to express their superior status and impress others. Therefore I assume this behavior could be the basis for the origin of Haul videos. Moreover, advertisers have also used this theory to promote products (for example, Apple companies advertisements and publicity uses this theory to create an urge in the consumers to buy the product) (Veblen and Chase, 1934).

By keeping this knowledge as an aid, let us understand how marketers can benefit from haul videos. Silverman (2001) states, “Getting people to talk often, favorably, to the right people in the right way about your product is far and away the most important thing that you can do as a marketer”. Thus, with the growing reach of YouTube and increasing popularity of the vloggers, have created a potential new platform for marketers. Marketers can effectively fuse strategies like word of mouth marketing, (where satisfied customers are ready to collaborate with the business and recommend them to others (Techopedia.com, 2014)and Public Relations, (which is a planned effort that is made by the marketers to create a goodwill and good reputation of the company with an objective of influencing opinions and behaviors of the views (Cipr.co.uk, 2014), into the haul videos.

Recognizing this opportunity, there are many agencies and brands that have approached these social stars to take advantage of their popularity and to make them their coincided brand ambassadors. For instance Influenster is a website, who invite active social media masterminds to enroll with them; they select the best vloggers, and provide them with free samples of brands like Colgate optic. Accordingly, the vloggers in return have to produce a video and give their viewers their opinion and recommendations (Influenster.com, 2014). Similarly, Lush cosmetics, invited three vloggers to their experiential lush kitchen- experiential marketing campaign on Google hangout where the host hinted the vloggers to make a video about their opinion and experience (YouTube, 2014). In the same manner there are other agents like EQAL and united talented agency who help vloggers to collaborate with brands. Alex (2014) has also stated that Bethany Mota draws approximately forty thousand dollars every month as a result of her alliance with brands.

On the contrary, subscribers will be of the impression that the opinions and that their favorite Vlogger would be genuine and individualistic. But, they realize that the vloggers are paid to promote and give positive opinion about a brand this could be perceived as promotional and deceiving. In relation to this Federal trade commission of United states have formulated a law for online content publishers, they have stated that any content that is sponsored should be disclosed to the audience (Joel, 2014). Despite of such surveillance, it can be observed that Vloggers have not completely summoned to the act. For instance, JC penny, sponsored ten bloggers to visit there store in Texas and gave each of them a shopping voucher worth thousand dollars. These vloggers were asked to make a ‘back to school’ haul video for JC Penney’s website. the vloggers also uploaded another haul video with all their purchases (Horovitz, 2014). In addition their videos had a disclaimer that stated that only cloths were sponsored but opinions were not. Despite, the disclaimer when keenly observed, it can be noted that none of these vloggers actually say any negative point about the brand and they also convincingly recommend the brand to the audience. This aspect could give rise to many questions about their obligations to the law.

On the other hand, the vloggers provide a very highly targeted reach to brands, in comparison to mass communication channels, which lead to very less advertising wastage. In this respect the price paid for such an exorbitant promotional activity could be very less for example Alex (2014) stated that Bethany draws around forty thousand dollars every month, which she could be earning through her multiple endorsers also through her new clothing line-Apostles. But, when this sum is roughly divided by even two brands she showcases in her video. She would be just earning only a few thousand dollars per brand. Which in comparison to other popular celebrity endorsers like Justin Bibber and Beyonce is very less. However, the fame and exposure provided by the platform must have been more valuable for teenagers.

Then again from the viewpoint of the brands, when a celebrity endorse them they enter into a contract with a brand which would restrict the endorsers from recommending or endorsing other competitor brands. Which on the other hand is unlikely in case of the vloggers. Aéropostale’s CEO Thomas Johnson who currently has given Mota a chance to start her first clothing line stated to Alex(2014), that they would not obligate her to shop only in their store, as they want her to stick to her authenticity. This could be seen as a big merit for haul vloggers because their main USP(unique selling point) is their online identity and if they do not maintain or relinquish their identity for endorsements, they would probably not sustain for long duration. Also, in my opinion these kind agreements could become a big gamble for business. That is, if vloggers speak high about a competitor in the same video in which a sponsored brand product is showcased. For instance, if a vlogger recorded a Zara and H&M haul video she could speak high about Zara’s collection over H&M, generating more interest for Zara than H&M

Considering the above reasons I believe, Haul videos would probably die or fade away in phases (see figure 1). Firstly, when the viewers realize (either due to increased law enforcement or due to increased media criticism) that their favorite vloggers are sponsored and their opinions are usually biased, the viewers may either unsubscribe the channel or the views of these haul videos might drastically reduce. Similarly to instance where, Tiger woods fans stopped associating with him, when he was accused with personal allegations. Next, when the business realize the impending challenges and instability of haul vloggers the sponsorships might reduce slowly, Lastly, due to lack of sponsorship, growing competition and reduced viewership, vloggers might lack resources and motivation, to produce haul videos. For instance, there are many vloggers who create video for an extra pocket money and is evident from the fact that most of the upcoming vloggers, mention their contact details separately for businesses. Hence when sponsorships reduce, many vloggers might stop or there might be significant reduction in the number of haul videos, however some vloggers could still continue their videos on other topics like DIY and cooking, as the popularity of their channels will still gain them partnership benefits from YouTube.

In conclusion, from observation and secondary research findings it can be inferred that marketing through haul video’s could just be a fad and not a trend that would last for long. This fad could grow to the height were the three parties involved (viewers, vloggers and marketers) realize the hidden disadvantages of these videos. Also, As a result there could be many haul video vloggers, who would reduce such haul production or would produce it occasionally.

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