For JCPenney, Forever 21 and Others, Teen "Haul" Videos are Hot, but Risky
JCPenney (JCP) is jumping into an emerging form of online marketing -- "haul" videos posted on YouTube by teenage shills who shop on the company's dime and then show what they bought from a particular store. The move may earn JCPenney some teen cred... until the fad dies, which could be next week.
If you're not in high school, you may never have watched a haul video. Know that they are a sensation that has already spawned superstars such as teen-queen sisters Elle and Blair Fowler, who've been featured in Seventeen magazine and are quickly making a business out of sharing their fashion and beauty tips. Currently at the top of these young ladies' YouTube pages (which each have more than 50,000 subscribers) is the lengthy haul video they shot about their shopping spree at Forever 21, which was part of an appearance on Good Morning America.
Haul videos, in a sense, are a marketer's dream -- listen to Elle nearly scream in the video above about how her chosen outfits are "So, so cute!" Which is why American Eagle (AEO), Forever 21 and others are jumping on the haul bandwagon. These homemade-feeling videos are nothing but teens holding up clothes and gushing about how stylish the merchandise is and how affordable it was to purchase. The casual, teen-to-teen, confidential chat format is a natural for many of today's always-online teens. (I have one, I know.)
But there are a couple of lurking problems here that could come back to bite these retailers. The first is legal compliance. FTC rules require paid haulers to disclose the fact that companies paid them to shop. It's going to be easy to get into hot water with this one -- watch the video above, and you'll see it carries no such disclosure. It appears that monitoring by the companies to make sure required disclosures are made is lax. And why shouldn't it be, since making that disclosure shatters the illusion that these are just ordinary teens who happen to like making home videos about their clothes.
The second problem is teens' famously gnat-short attention span and high sensitivity to being overtly sold. Once it becomes common knowledge that the haulers are paid shills, teens' interest in haul videos may quickly evaporate, leaving major retailers cranking out haul videos to teen ridicule rather than rapt teen interest.
One final issue that may afflict JCPenney -- apparently its plan is to shortly begin posting its haul videos on the company's own teen-focused Web site, jcp teen. That sort of blows the underground-video illusion right off the bat. They'd do better to just let those float around YouTube and find their audience.
Video courtesy of YouTube user juicystar07; photo via Flickr user dno1967 Related: