Crouching Jaguar, Hidden Agenda?
Talha bin Hamid on whether the Jaguar rebrand is a failed attempt or a marketing dream come true.
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Boulevard of Impossible Dreams?
Have an iffy product to sell? YouTube is here to help.
I am ashamed. I fell for it. The glitz and sparkle of the image was just too alluring: me on the stage, belting out Bohemian Rhapsody before a spellbound audience with Simon Cowell rushing to the stage himself and giving me a hug.
And who sold this dream to me? Of course, a YouTuber who sings, reacts to songs and apparently runs his own training programme. He was kind enough to distil his entire learning into a five-week-long course originally costing $180 but discounted to $90… and with a few clicks on the keyboard as I held the credit card in my other hand, boom! The money was gone and I had access to a webpage that contained 35 singing lessons.
Did it work? I simply ask you: Can you learn to drive through YouTube?
The world of YouTube content sponsorship is weird. Against all common sense, it is effective and, cleverly, not exposed to any regulation or fact-checking. I am not talking about YouTube ads. I am talking about the products that your favourite vloggers swear by, carefully showing themselves using them and urging you to sign up for the same, using their special discount code.
Unlike YouTube ads, these modern-day equivalents of infomercials cannot be skipped easily.
Even when one succeeds in skipping them, it is not before the name of the product and what it does have been conveyed. This does not mean that these products do not work; oh no, they work JUUUUST well enough to be picked up by vloggers, without necessarily delivering everything they promise. It is not free-for-all; vloggers need to safeguard their reputations too!
Take the example of the signing programme. The vlogger himself is an amazing singer and seems to know music theory through and through. Would he have become such a great singer through his own programme? No! But the programme exists. It is properly structured, and any lack of results can conveniently be attributed to the user’s stunning lack of talent. And there’s the rub: one cannot sue any of these sponsors because they are not frauds.
Take a well-known device case designer who sponsors videos made by Marques Brownlee (MKBHD). As one of the biggest vloggers out there, MKBHD wields an ungodly amount of influence, so much so that only recently a fledgling automaker went bankrupt and blamed MKBHD’s review for the failure of its latest vehicle. Outlandish? Hardly, given that MKBHD has 19.7 million subscribers.
There are companies that claim to deliver ‘fresh’ pre-packaged meal kits for the low, low price of $9.99 apiece to the USA and a host of other countries. There are still others who offer a superior knife, a world-changing crypto investment programme, a personal groomer that is better than anyone available on the market, an AI-based graphic generator that trumps all others… you get the idea.
All these products have a few common threads. They claim to be ‘superior’ to alternatives as well as costing less. They are delivered straight to your home and they are NEVER from a company or a brand you have ever heard of before. Perhaps because they are aimed at consumers who are easily led, averse to market research, or plain gullible. Don’t believe that such things can happen today? Every new email claiming to be from a lost Nigerian princess begs to differ.
Think about it: why do you not see a sponsorship from Samsung, Toyota or Spigen? Because they all know a startlingly obvious fact: vlog sponsorships are a hotbed of products that are mediocre.
Again, let me stress: it is a big business. The average sponsorship rates are nothing to scoff at.
Small YouTubers/Micro-influencers (1,000-10,000 subscribers):$200-$2,500 per dedicated sponsored video.
Mid-Sized Channels (10,000-100,000 subscribers):
$1,000-$5,000 per sponsored video.
Large Channels (100,000+ subscribers):
$5,000+ per sponsored video
(Source: Descript)
They are not frauds or vapourware. They are genuine businesses. Their problem is that they are not competitive or compelling enough to compete in the main arena and therefore select an avenue that requires just convincing one money-hungry vlogger to expound on their virtues. It is up to us to safeguard our mindshare and our money. Or, in my case, remember that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by profession, a reader, writer, public speaker, poet, trainer and geek by passion.
talhamid@gmail.com
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Even when one succeeds in skipping them, it is not before the name of the product and what it does have been conveyed. This does not mean that these products do not work; oh no, they work JUUUUST well enough to be picked up by vloggers, without necessarily delivering everything they promise. It is not free-for-all; vloggers need to safeguard their reputations too!
Take the example of the signing programme. The vlogger himself is an amazing singer and seems to know music theory through and through. Would he have become such a great singer through his own programme? No! But the programme exists. It is properly structured, and any lack of results can conveniently be attributed to the user’s stunning lack of talent. And there’s the rub: one cannot sue any of these sponsors because they are not frauds.
Take a well-known device case designer who sponsors videos made by Marques Brownlee (MKBHD). As one of the biggest vloggers out there, MKBHD wields an ungodly amount of influence, so much so that only recently a fledgling automaker went bankrupt and blamed MKBHD’s review for the failure of its latest vehicle. Outlandish? Hardly, given that MKBHD has 19.7 million subscribers.
There are companies that claim to deliver ‘fresh’ pre-packaged meal kits for the low, low price of $9.99 apiece to the USA and a host of other countries. There are still others who offer a superior knife, a world-changing crypto investment programme, a personal groomer that is better than anyone available on the market, an AI-based graphic generator that trumps all others… you get the idea.
All these products have a few common threads. They claim to be ‘superior’ to alternatives as well as costing less. They are delivered straight to your home and they are NEVER from a company or a brand you have ever heard of before. Perhaps because they are aimed at consumers who are easily led, averse to market research, or plain gullible. Don’t believe that such things can happen today? Every new email claiming to be from a lost Nigerian princess begs to differ.
Think about it: why do you not see a sponsorship from Samsung, Toyota or Spigen? Because they all know a startlingly obvious fact: vlog sponsorships are a hotbed of products that are mediocre.
Again, let me stress: it is a big business. The average sponsorship rates are nothing to scoff at.
Small YouTubers/Micro-influencers (1,000-10,000 subscribers):$200-$2,500 per dedicated sponsored video.
Mid-Sized Channels (10,000-100,000 subscribers):
$1,000-$5,000 per sponsored video.
Large Channels (100,000+ subscribers):
$5,000+ per sponsored video
(Source: Descript)
They are not frauds or vapourware. They are genuine businesses. Their problem is that they are not competitive or compelling enough to compete in the main arena and therefore select an avenue that requires just convincing one money-hungry vlogger to expound on their virtues. It is up to us to safeguard our mindshare and our money. Or, in my case, remember that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by profession, a reader, writer, public speaker, poet, trainer and geek by passion.
talhamid@gmail.com
Read Comments
Related Stories
Again, let me stress: it is a big business. The average sponsorship rates are nothing to scoff at.
Small YouTubers/Micro-influencers (1,000-10,000 subscribers):$200-$2,500 per dedicated sponsored video.
Mid-Sized Channels (10,000-100,000 subscribers):
$1,000-$5,000 per sponsored video.
Large Channels (100,000+ subscribers):
$5,000+ per sponsored video
(Source: Descript)
They are not frauds or vapourware. They are genuine businesses. Their problem is that they are not competitive or compelling enough to compete in the main arena and therefore select an avenue that requires just convincing one money-hungry vlogger to expound on their virtues. It is up to us to safeguard our mindshare and our money. Or, in my case, remember that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by profession, a reader, writer, public speaker, poet, trainer and geek by passion.
talhamid@gmail.com