The Effect Vloggers Have on Their Watchers

Title: The effect vloggers have on their watchers

Research question: How do vloggers affect the buying behaviour of their watchers between the age of 15-24 in Hungary regarding cameras?

Introduction

The number of worldwide video viewers has increased by 96% from 2012 to 2017, numerically from 372 million to 732 million. (eMarketer, 2016) But what is the reason behind this? Video blogging, or shortly vlogging first appeared in 2000 by Adam Kontras who posted a video of himself next to a blog entry (Chanie Kirschner, 2012). In 2005, YouTube was launched. (Phrasee, n.d.) Yet despite it was a significant step in the history of vlogging, vloggers were only sporadic at this time. After a few years, when video cameras and smartphones with cameras had been spreading, hundreds of people started uploading videos to YouTube. They produced content, became known and inspired others to create their own channel. Thereby, vlogging gained extensive popularity. Vloggers are now present in most of the countries, however with a different number.

The Hungarian population is more than 9.8 million of which around one million is between the age of 15-24 which is the target group of this research. (Indexmundi, 2017) Therefore, vloggers with 50,000 or more subscribers can be considered successful and popular ones. In Hungary, there are around 240 of them. (Socialblade, n.d.) Each channel has different target audience, however it can be concluded that mostly youngsters (between the age of 15 and 24) watch these vlogs. Considering that people at this age are depending on other people’s opinion, they might choose a vlogger as their role model simply because they think being similar to them equals being just as popular and accepted by others as them. Thus, YouTubers can be called influencers because of their impact on other people’s lives and decisions.

Purpose and Aims

As it was mentioned before, there are around 240 popular channels in Hungary. However, many new YouTube channels are created every day due to the fact that this platform might seem alluring because there is no limitation in the number of vloggers. To start a new channel, only a camera and of course internet connection is needed. Therefore, the main decision before establishing a new channel is to choose and buy a camera. Since most of the new vloggers had already watched other YouTubers before starting their own channel, they most likely decided based on the opinions shared by other vloggers. The purpose of this study is to research the influence vloggers have on the buying behaviour of their watchers regarding cameras. By conducting this research, it will be elaborated how big impact do YouTubers have on their watcher’s choice of camera.

Literature Review

As YouTube started gaining popularity, marketers have seen it as an untapped opportunity for advertising. It was beguiling due to the fact that watching online videos became available for everyone because of the technological developments. The main goal of advertising on YouTube was to reach as many potential customers as possible. Therefore, in stream video advertising was created. These ads appear pre-, mid-, or post-roll while viewing partner content. (YouTube Help, n.d.) Most of them are skippable, meaning that viewers can skip it after 5 seconds if they are not interested. This method seemed effective since viewers must watch at least a part of the ads. However, based on a research, 73% of the people often skip these ads. (Dehghani, Niaki, Ramezani and Sali, 2016)

Being aware of this disadvantage, more and more marketers are using another method of advertising which was created by the growing popularity of vloggers. This method is advertising through vloggers and their videos. It is common to see companies promoting their products via well-known vloggers. Unboxing became one of the most popular trends in YouTube. According to Ingham (2015), these videos “simply involve an often unseen person opening products they have bought on a recent shopping spree”. Nevertheless, the products cannot only be bought by vloggers but they can also be sent by companies. During these unboxing videos, YouTubers mostly share their first impression of different products. Although another popular trend is companies sending products to vloggers and asking for a review video. These are made and uploaded after using the specific products for a longer period of time. Therefore, it is guaranteed that vloggers already have sufficient experience for sharing their opinions.

According to research Ananda and Wandebori (2016) conducted about the impact of makeup product reviews by vloggers on YouTube towards purchase intention, by companies offering influencers a partnership to promote their product, a win-win situation is created. For the companies it is an opportunity to emerge their products to their segment while the vloggers can gain popularity and fame. Even though this research is about beauty vloggers, some parts can be considered as general truths. Moreover, the buying behaviour of cameras is similar to the buying behaviour of makeup. Before buying a camera, a research is usually made by the potential customer regarding the product itself, the product features, the price and the value for money. In addition, since normally people buy cameras less often than makeup, they might consider their possibilities more carefully. Before making the decision, customers watch review videos about the targeted product. As it was already mentioned above, youngsters’ opinion, who are the target audience of this research, are easily influenced. And who else could give them the last thrust before their purchase than their role models, the vloggers?

Since marketers started taking the opportunity and promoting their products with the help of vloggers, many researches have been conducted regarding this topic. According to Gilliland (2016) 43% of the companies believe that after film actors (with 50%), vloggers are the second most relevant to their advertising strategy. However, finding the right influencer is crucial for companies in order to achieve their goals. Factors such as brand experience, engagement, frequency of videos or the number of followers are only few of the factors which have to be kept in mind when choosing the right vlogger.

Research Design

For this research a qualitative method will be used in order to collect the required data. It will be collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The interviews will take around 20 minutes and will be recorded. Permission for the recording will be asked in advance. Moreover, interviewees will be informed in advance that their responses will be kept confidential. The transcriptions will be found in the appendices. Three interviewees will be chosen. Firstly, a Hungarian person between the age of 15 and 24 who watches Hungarian vlogs frequently. He/she represents the population whose decision is being influenced by vloggers. Secondly, a Hungarian marketer from a camera shop. His opinion about people’s buying behaviour regarding cameras will be used for the research.  Thirdly, as an influencer, a Hungarian vlogger, who has already shared his/her opinion about his/her camera, will be interviewed.