I took a trip to the city recently in hopes to get myself prepared for winter *as if winter isn't here already* and unexpectedly ended up splurging. Do tell me what you think, or if you have anything to recommend in the comment section below!
P/s: In my defense, they were all SO cheap!
For the uninitiated, haul videos are a genre of online video in which people show off their purchases, mostly clothing and accessories. These videos are also considered as another form of blogging, namely 'vlogging', which stands for video blogging. Haul videos are basically shopping haul posts in video form, where you have the bloggers telling you why they bought what they bought, which does not really strike me as 'informative'. Many of these bloggers, in my opinion, are social advocates of blatant consumerism. Informative or not, they have certainly gained immense popularity over recent years, there are now more than 800 thousand videos with 'haul' in the title on Youtube. (Maheshwari, 2013) The question here is, are bloggers actually doing it for fame and fortune? Or are they blogging just because?
We now live in the era of Web 2.0, or what Shih (2009) calls 'the fourth revolution', where communication amongst netizens and social media users possess the power to greatly enhance marketing efforts with viral marketing campaigns. According to Comscore (2009), the Internet has a potential audience of 11 million people of which more than 70% use a social network. Many startup companies and established business have hopped on the social bandwagon because it has proven itself to be one, if not most, powerful tool to achieve brand recognition and to reach an audience.
Image courtesy of Jay Dolan
We now live in the era of Web 2.0, or what Shih (2009) calls 'the fourth revolution', where communication amongst netizens and social media users possess the power to greatly enhance marketing efforts with viral marketing campaigns. According to Comscore (2009), the Internet has a potential audience of 11 million people of which more than 70% use a social network. Many startup companies and established business have hopped on the social bandwagon because it has proven itself to be one, if not most, powerful tool to achieve brand recognition and to reach an audience.
Viral marketing, also known as word-of-mouth (WOM), is the tactic of creating a process where users who share the same interest can market to each other. (Subramahi & Rajagopalan, 2003, p1) Though social media has propelled marketing to a whole new level, it has some setbacks. The 'marketer', which in this case, the blogger, is at a certain level of risk. Users might turn away from a social networking site if they feel that their interests are being subjugated to those of advertisers. (Miller & Lammas, p5) Schemes that blatantly 'adopt' users to promote products or services may upset the status quo and reduce the overall effectiveness of viral marketing. In relation to the shopping haul video or post, some products may have been placed beforehand and is included solely for monetary gain.
In the USA, bloggers are expected to be cognisant of the guidelines set by the FTC (Federal Trade Commision) on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. This means that should bloggers receive any sort of payment or product from advertisers or companies to blog about, they are to disclose the relationship in the blog. If the same rules and regulations are applied in Asia, I believe that viewers can avoid confusion regarding the post's intent.
Some blogs like Malaysian beauty blogger Emily Quak's contains disclaimers. Image courtesy of http://www.emilyquak.com
Lifestyle blogger Koey Leow uses a more distinctive approach - labelling all sponsored posts in the heading. Image courtesy of http://www.koeyleow.com
Travel blogger Nicole Tan provides a more subtle but still appropriate way of clarification. Image courtesy of http://nicolekiss.blogspot.com.au
These examples inattentively clarifies the post's intent for the viewers, but there are still myriads of blogs out there which do not exercise these kinds of 'preventative measures'. Even if they did, would viewers still be interested in reading sponsored posts, or to put it in another way, basically a post by advertisers? Is there ever in the history of blogging where a sponsored blogpost has a negative element in it? This brings us back to our main question, are bloggers really doing it just because they love to blog?
Comscore 2009, 2 Million More Australians Go Social in 2009 <http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/8/2_Million_More_Australians_Go_Social_in_2009>
Friedman, F. (2009), Parenting Blogs May Be Held Liable for Product Reviews, ABC News, [online] Available at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=7301845&page=1 Accessed 14th May 2014
Maheshwari, S. (2013) Youtube Shopper Haul Videos Have More Combined Views Than "Gangnam Style", Buzzfeed [online] Available at http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/youtube-shopper-haul-videos-have-more-combined-views-than-ga Accessed 14th May 2014
Miller, R. and Lammas, N. "Social media and its implication for viral marketing," Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, (11), [online] Available at https://lms.rmit.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-4943699-dt-content-rid-9451027_1/courses/COMM2336_1410/11-miller-lammas.pdf Accessed 14th May 2014
Shih, Clare Chung-wai (2009) The Facebook Era: tapping online social networks to build better products, reach new audiences and sell more stuff, Pearson Education, MA
Subramani, Mani. R. and Rajagopalan, Balaji, (2003), "Knowledge-sharing and influence in online social networks via viral Marketing," Communications of the ACM, Volume 46, Number 12, 300-307
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