How Youtube Unboxing and Kid Influencers Became the Key Players of Toy Industry

Remember when the internet’s biggest thrill was the subscriber race between Pewdiepie and an Indian music corporation named T-Series? Pewdiewpie had remained the undisputed king of the internet for a long time. He had the highest number of subscribers on YouTube and, all of a sudden, T-Series almost caught up, thanks to the growing number of internet users in India, a country with 1.4 billion people. In mid-2018, when the race was still on, Pewdiepie had some 60 million subscribers on YouTube.

This article is not about Pewdiepie or T-Series. The race was won by T-Series long ago; currently, it has 215 million subscribers, the highest on YouTube. However, the more interesting phenomenon in the meantime is the astronomical rise in demand for children’s content on the internet. 50 million sounds like more of a regular number nowadays.

Among the top ten highest videos on YouTube, six of which are kid’s videos. The highest watched video on YouTube is “Baby Shark Dance”, uploaded by a channel named “Pinkfong Baby Shark – kid’s songs and stories” in June 2016. The channel has 57.5 million subscribers. However, a channel named “Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes” holds the highest number of subscribers in the children category; Cocomelon has 135 million subscribers, 2^nd in the list of top subscribers on YouTube.

How YouTube became a gold mine of opportunity:

We are living in a spectacular era of technological advancements. The world is moving so fast every year that we are bound to be surprised when we look back just 5 to 10 years. The world is getting digitalized at a rapid pace. YouTube only started in 2005, and currently, it has 2.3 active users. It is the 2^nd most popular social media and 2^nd most popular search engine behind Google. Every day people watch one billion hours of YouTube, and the number is ever-growing. Every minute, 500 hours of videos are being uploaded to the platform. YouTube has come a long way since its journey when it was only a simple file-sharing website. Today, 90% of the netizens use this platform to watch videos. According to a study, 90% of people discover a brand through YouTube. It is also very popular among the millennials and generation Z. This also opened a massive scale business opportunity for everybody.

 

How YouTubers became influencers:

YouTube is a user-generated platform, and it rewards its creators through monetization options. Since its journey, many people tried many different activities to get attention on YouTube. People tried music, comedy, vlogging, gaming, stunts, reviewing, unboxing, etc. Today, there are thousands of niches and content categories. Millions of creators are working on their niches. These creators over the years became popular and created their own audience. Social media celebrities are called ‘influencers’ because they have power over their audience. 

YouTube is not just an entertainment platform, but also a giant search console. The Internet has changed the way of our consumption. People now like to research before buying any product. They want to read and watch reviews and explore potential options. Creators are reviewing different categories – such as mobiles, laptops, movies, equipment, toys, etc – to satisfy their consumer demands.

 

How the toy industry started leveraging the kid influencers and their content:

In the past when there was no internet, the Toy industry used traditional media to promote its business. Television media was the widely used media. Traditional television advertisement targeting children was introduced by the Toy industry giant Mattel in the ‘50s. Over the years the marketing campaign went through some changes. Sponsored programs and kids' shows were also used as a promotion tool. 

However, Television remained the primary source of marketing as kids love visual ecstasy. Things, however, started changing after the 2000s when the networks like Nickelodeon and Disney started losing viewers. These networks had lost more than half their viewers over the years. Kids weren’t interested in television anymore. They turned up to the internet for entertainment; kids started watching engaging videos on YouTube, and there was plenty of content being created to meet the demand. Over the last decade, children’s content has exploded on the internet. Noticing the rapid growth, the toy companies made their move to the digital world.

 

How LOL Surprise unboxed the marketing tool:

LOL Surprise, which stands for “Little Outrageous Little Surprise”, was launched by MGA Entertainment in December 2016. Interestingly, the founder of MGAE, Isaac Larian, received the idea from his children. Isaac was fighting an exhausting legal battle with the rival Mattel over copyright issues, and his most popular toy brand “Bratz” was in trouble. He was looking for ideas. One day his daughters mentioned to him about i-phone unboxing videos. Unamused, Larian didn’t quite fathom why anybody would record an unboxing and why would anyone watch it. 

However, he decided to check it himself. Larian was struck with surprise when he saw there were tons of unboxing videos and they had millions of views. As a veteran businessman, Larian quickly realized the trend. He understood why those videos engaged viewers, and he decided to adopt that trend as a business plan. He gathered his creative team and ordered them to design a new toy brand that will require unboxing, mimicking the idea from YouTube.

The designers were spot on. They perfectly captured the internet phenomenon of the unboxing trends and adopted it in their product design. The brand LOL Surprise was introduced. The toys of LOL Surprise required a similar process to YouTube unboxing videos. It also created a surprise element as the buyer didn’t know what Toy they were getting until they open it. This opened a new genre of toys and created opportunities for user-generated toy unboxing videos. A bigger sibling of LOL toys, OMG, which stands for “outrageous millennial girls” was also introduced. The acronyms LOL and OMG were also obviously adopted from the internet. The brand “LOL Surprise” was an instant hit. It generated over $5 billion in revenue within a couple of years of its introduction. 7 out of the top 10 most sold dolls were LOL toys.

 

How kids became the darling of the Toy Industry:

Noticing the trend and the rapid growth of kid’s entertainment, the companies quickly moved to the digital world. Today they spent 50% or more of their marketing budget digitally. There were already many YouTubers, both children, and adults, making videos for their young audience. There are two types of videos – animated and non-animated. The latter category includes toy reviewing, playing with toys, and kids' shows that require toys. 

These channels were attracting views from the children in millions and billions. Children were hooked on their gadgets watching these videos. The toy companies hired child influencers to promote their toys. They gave them training, guidance, and equipment to make more professional videos. The video quality became better and better with time. In the last five years, the segment just exploded like wildfire.

At first, the kid influencers were happy with receiving free toys, but then they started charging. They started creating sponsored shows. This opened massive opportunities for them too. Currently, there are tons of kid influencers working on YouTube. Many of them are earning millions of dollars every year. For example, Ryan Kaji of Ryan’s World is a big celebrity in this segment. According to estimates, he has a net worth of $32 million. Ryan also has his own toy line now; he also has a TV show on Nickelodeon. The star of “Like Nastya” has a net worth of $30 million. Vlad and Nikki have an estimated net worth of $280 million. These gigantic numbers show the opportunities this category provides. 

 

List of Top Channels in Kid’s Entertainment:

Here is a list of some of the most popular channels of children’s content –

 

• Cocomelon – 135 million subs, 128 billion views, started 2006, 5.3 billion views most-watched,

• Kids Diana Show – 95 million subs, 74 billion views

• Vlad and Nikki – 82 million subs, Joined Apr 23, 2018, 60 billion views, 448 videos

• Like Nastya – 93 million subs, 75 billion views, joined 2016

• Pinkfong Baby Shark – Kid’s songs and stories, 58 million subs, highest viewed video, baby shark, 30 billion views,

• Chuchu TV – 56 million subs, 37 billion views,

• Looloo Kids – 49 million subs,

• Like Nastya Show – 41 million subs, 18 billion views,

• Get Movies – 40 million subs, 28 billion views, Russian channel,

• Masha and the bear – 33 million subs

• Ryans Toy Review – 32.5 million subs,

• Awesmr Pop – 7.4 million subs, 1.7 billion views

• CookieSwirlC – 17.7 million subs, 3528 videos,

• Evantubehd – 7.05 million subs, 883 videos,

• CKN – 18 million subs, 810 videos,

• Genevieve's Playhouse - Learning Videos for Kids, 25M subscribers, 16 billion views,

• Kid's Roma show  - 19 million subs,

• Miroshka TV – 18 million subs, highest viewed 4.5 billion views, Мирошка ТВ, 46 billion views

• Tiana – 11 million subs,

• Sandaroo kids – 6 million subs, 500 videos,

• Toy for kids -  7 million subs, 2.2 billion views,

•  Kinder Spielzeug Kanal – 18.3 million subs, 800 million views, 690 videos

• Chapter toy tv – 2.58 million subs, Indian channel

•  With KIds Playground 5.2 million subs, 1.9 billion views, South Korea, Joined Jan 4, 2017

• Pstoyreviews - 1.8 million subs, 1.1 billion views,

• Rhia official – 5 million subs, 2.3 billion views,

• Slick Slime Sam – 8 million subs, 32 billion views, started 2017,

• Funtoys Collector Disney Toy Review – 11 million subs, 15 billion views