Inspiration is a major purchase driver for trial of new beauty products, and shoppers are getting nearly all of their how-to inspiration from non-branded, amateur vlogger sources. In fact, major brands owned only 3% of beauty video content views out of YouTube’s 14.9 billion views of beauty content in 2013.
Online beauty shoppers do their research, visiting five or more sites before making a purchase. In an industry driven by emotional, high-end, and celebrity-based advertising, it’s hard for a beauty brand to mimic the success of an 18-year-old in her bedroom, showing her peers how she uses products to get her desired look via a Haul video.
As a beauty brand, you need to find a way to either harness the power of amateur endorsement or find a way to replicate the success of vloggers who provide practical information and demo a product and drive sales the way a glossy, full-color Vogue ad cannot. The struggle of executing an authentic how-to video and maintaining the equities of a beauty brand are difficult to reconcile.
Contributed By: Ariel Knobbe, Integer Denver
Photo Source: YouTube.com. Ingrid Nilsen, Summer Drugstore Beauty Haul!
