Haul Videos: A New Kind of Online Marketing

The best part of shopping seems to be, not racking up the goods themselves, but that moment when you get home and dig through the bags to try it all on again for your friends, family, and well just for the fun right?  Well that’s kind of the idea behind YouTube’s growing phenomenon known as the ‘Haul Video’.

A haul video goes a little something like this: a young girl sits in her bedroom showing off all her latest purchases in front of a webcam talking about mundane details like price, colour, features etc.  It seems as if something like this would hardly fathom that much attention right? Wrong! By late 2010, nearly a quarter of a million haul videos had been shared on YouTube alone. According to Chelsea Maughan, a YouTube spokesperson, videos uploaded to the site with 'haul' in the title have almost doubled over the past four years.  

According to a recent article in the guardian it seems in this crowded world Bethany Mota is queen. Her online empire consists of 1.2 million Twitter followers, 2.3 million Instagram followers, and 5.1 million YouTube subscribers. Check out one of her videos here:

So what does this have to do with marketer's? Well for a start, haul videos are a great way to connect with potential customers and showcase products. The hauler gets some cool free stuff and the company gets free publicity. Everybody wins! Leading retailers like J.C. Penny, Forever 21 and American Eagle are just a few of those that are capitalizing on the trend, offering girls gift cards to shop at their stores with the expectation that they will post haul videos bragging about their latest retail hauls. J.C. Penny took it one step further by hiring at least six young girls to produce back to school haul videos. Target has also created their own mock "Happy Haul-idays" clips.

So what do you guys make of this phenomenon? I have to confess that after spending a whole afternoon doing some research, I can see how some find them highly addictive and entertaining. I'd love to hear your comments. Are these young girls marketing opportunities waiting to be snapped up or are they all just dying fads?