A new form of celebrity has been forming over the last few years through an online portal know as YouTube, YouTube is a video upload site that allows anyone from around the world (Apart from countries where YouTube is banned (Amini 2014)) to upload anything like (Within Guidelines) to the site which then can be viewed by everyone who can access the site.

Over the last few years YouTube stars have started to see success in different markets apart from YouTube with one of the biggest YouTubers called Zoella aka Zoe Sugg producing a number one best selling book shattering records by selling over 78,000 copies of her debut novel: Girl Online within the first week (Singh 2014) with many other YouTubers such as Alfie Deyes and Joe Sugg achieving similar success with their books. This shows the sheer power of these new forms of celebrities showing that their endorsement of a product can lead to huge success.

So How Does This Work For A Brand:

Below is a very simple model created by YouTube that shows how advertisers can work with content creators and their viewers, showing that advertisers can get in contact with YouTube or the creators and publish a campaign or product through a video and then it can be viewed by the content creators ready made audience which will then send traffic to the advertiser.

Benefits of Working with a YouTube content creator:

There are multiple different benefits of working with a YouTube creator and these can be seen below.

 Ready-made audience – when choosing a content creator to promote your brand, you can look at the content creators current audience and decide whether that audience would be suitable for your brand. For example Zoella has almost 10 million subscribers meaning working with her allows a brand to have a potential of 10 million new customers around the world.

For Example Zoella has almost 10 million subscribers and averages 20 million views a month (Social Blade 2016) meaning that working with Zoella gives you that ready made audience and potential customers.

Youtube.com/Zoella

Brand can grow alongside YouTube channel – The majority of strong YouTube channels consistently grow on a month-to-month basis for example according to (VidstatsX 2016) Ksi one of the leading YouTubers in the UK gained over 300,000 subscribers in the last 90 days as off today the 25^th of January 2016 meaning that working with a star like Ksi suggests that your brand could gain exposure to 300,000 potential new customers in a 90 day period whilst working with KSI.

For Example KSI works with Rulem Sport and the main presenter of the channel is KSI himself the channel gains views and subscribers along with the growth on KSI.

https://www.youtube.com/user/rulemsports

YouTube is part of Google – According to wearegrow.com more and more YouTube videos are appearing in Google searches therefore advertising through YouTube should increase the chance of a brand being found on a Google search.

A quick search term on Google “How to do press ups” and instantly the third search result shows a YouTube video on how to do press ups, this shows that Google are integrating videos into search results.

Google Search: 27th January 2016 – 21:00

(Learmonth 2014) wrote that YouTube is the “unknown” and that YouTube themselves believe that the platform itself can grow and grow, with the author suggesting that YoutTube want to look back to traditional methods to promote YouTube videos such as TV ads and billboards. Suggesting that with the power large audiences and great content creators YouTube can become even bigger in the future. Learmonth wrote that there are large audiences on YouTube but low awareness suggesting that the viewing figures are there however some advertisers are unaware of the potential the site can deliver. Therefore the Learmonth suggests YouTube should look at possible ways to bridge this gap in the future.

References:

Amini, T. (2014). 10 Countries That Have Blocked YouTube (And Why). Available: http://kotaku.com/10-countries-that-have-blocked-youtube-and-why-1547347768. Last accessed 25th Jan 2016.

Anon. (2015). 8 Massive Benefits of Using YouTube For Business. Available: http://www.wearegrow.com/8-massive-benefits-of-using-youtube-for-business/. Last accessed 25th Jan 2016.

Anon. (2015). .. Available: http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/zoella280390. Last accessed 27th Jan 2016.

Creator Academy. (2016). How Ads Work On YouTube. Available: https://creatoracademy.withgoogle.com/page/lesson/ad-types?hl=en-GB#yt-creators-strategies-1. Last accessed 25th Jan 2016.

Learmonth, M. (2014). YOUTUBE BEGINS A NEW ERA. Advertising age. 85 (8), 16.

Singh, A. (2014). Zoella breaks record for first-week book sales. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11268540/Zoella-breaks-record-for-first-week-book-sales.html. Last accessed 25th Jan 2016.

Vid Stats. (2016). KSIolajidebt. Available: http://vidstatsx.com/ksiolajidebt/youtube-channel. Last accessed 25th Jan 2016.

Argos Digital Success

Drawing on the case study by Brand Watch, Argos is the UK’s largest digital retailer with over 43,000 products avaliable online at Argos.co.uk and through their stores. Receiving an outstanding 738 million website hits a year through Argos.co.uk. Serving 123 millions customers through this portal. Argos are clearly doing things correctly on the digital front, therefore the challenge for Argos is how can they inprove on their success in order to stay at the very top of the digital market?

Digital Future of the brand

Argos are now looking to open 53 Digital store to add to their 758 current stores in the UK, these stores will focus on transforming the in store experience. Argos understand this is a risk and will want to closely monitor any comments and information relating to these store. Therefore Argos will turn its attention to using Brandwatch to help them monitor how these stores are doing.

Brand Watch Monitoring

BrandWatch is an online platform that monitors the presence of a brand on social media and creates reports and anaysis to feed back to brands on how they are performing, this is perfect way to monitor the Argos digital stores as customers that will be using them will clearly be very tech savy and digital orenitiated meaning if they have any issues they are more likely to vent on social media then the tradistional methods like writing a letter of complaint. Brand Watch has various different tools which can be can by the brand to monitor the feedback, Brand Watch can deliver information on gender, locations and other key specifics.

Drawing on the points discovered above, are Argos right in taking this risk and will it work in order for the business to move forward in the digital world. comparing this to market competitors many other store like B&Q are looking to increase the speed of delivery by offering customers the opportunity to order something online then having the opportunity to collect the item from a store only 2 hours after placing the order online. This is game changing as the business believes it adds added purpose to the stores with customers coming in to pick up their products meaning they may look around to make additonal purchases whilst there. This move means if you’re in the middle of home DIY jobs and run out of certain colour or something you still can complete the job on the same day without having to wait a lengthy time for deliveries.

Day one of the digital adventure.

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