Dis­ney recent­ly host­ed an 18-hour unbox­ing video marathon to pro­mote their new range of “Star Wars: The Force Awak­ens” toys. Tak­ing place on YouTube, the live event reflects a grow­ing recog­ni­tion among brands for video “unbox­ings” – a for­mat con­sumers have been engag­ing with on YouTube for years. Are brands start­ing to catch on?

Unbox­ing videos have been around almost as long as online video-shar­ing plat­forms them­selves. Their pop­u­lar­i­ty has an endur­ing appeal.

In what must have been one of, if not the first unbox­ing video, this remark­able record­ing from 1978 revealed an ear­ly beta­max recorder, which was actu­al­ly used to record the video itself!

Dis­ney’s 18-hour glob­al broad­cast, which cul­mi­nat­ed with the release of new toys on Sep­tem­ber 4, or #Force­Fri­day, rep­re­sents a pin­na­cle of how sig­nif­i­cant the unbox­ing video for­mat has become, and also how such videos are increas­ing being rec­og­nized by brands as being a fan­tas­tic and pop­u­lar form of con­tent.

Unboxing The Numbers

The term “unbox­ing” start­ed to gain pop­u­lar­i­ty around 2006 and has expe­ri­enced grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty ever since, accord­ing to Google Trends.

There are more than 20 mil­lion search results on YouTube for “unbox­ing”, and one-fifth of con­sumers have watched an unbox­ing video, accord­ing to a Think with Google arti­cle from Novem­ber. Views of unbox­ing videos also surged 57 per­cent in 2014, and the num­ber if “unbox­ing” uploads also rose 50 per­cent.

In addi­tion, a WSJ arti­cle quot­ed that video ana­lyt­ics firm Zefr revealed that these videos had been viewed a total of 10.3 bil­lion times.

Enduring Appeal & Authenticity

In many ways, it’s clear why the for­mat has expe­ri­enced a reju­ve­nat­ed appeal in tan­dem with the rise of video shar­ing plat­forms.

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of unbox­ing videos stems from how it gives con­sumers “the abil­i­ty [to see prod­ucts] exact­ly for what it is, with­out any adul­ter­ation adver­tis­ers usu­al­ly make around the prod­uct,” accord­ing to the PBS Idea Chan­nel.

In oth­er words, the for­mat has that ele­ment of authen­tic­i­ty, which can be very per­sua­sive for con­sumers in the research stage of a pur­chase deci­sion. As the PBS pre­sen­ter states, “being able to see what you are get­ting can con­tribute to the deci­sion­al process.”

Unbox­ing videos are now a pop­u­lar part of the research process, espe­cial­ly in tech­nol­o­gy. Con­sumers research­ing a mobile phone pur­chase, for exam­ple, can see how the prod­uct is pack­aged, dis­cov­er what extras it comes with, and get an ear­ly look at the pro­duc­t’s set up and user inter­faces.

How Influential Are Unboxing Videos?

The influ­ence of these unbox­ing videos can be huge.

An Octoly study in Octo­ber of Birch­box unbox­ing videos revealed that earned media views from unbox­ing videos (14.5 mil­lion) eclipsed the brand’s organ­ic views (600,000) and 2 mil­lion paid views. A sin­gle influ­encer chan­nel, eleven­th­gor­geous, were respon­si­ble for almost 35 per­cent of the brand’s earned media audi­ence with a series of videos that have an audi­ence of over 5 mil­lion view­ers.

When you con­sid­er Google data indi­cat­ing that as much as 62 per­cent of con­sumers who watch an unbox­ing video are “research­ing a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct” its clear that the reach and influ­ence of unbox­ing videos has huge poten­tial for brands look­ing to nur­ture con­sumers on the path to pur­chase.

Leveraging Owned & Earned Media

Unbox­ing videos rep­re­sent an influ­en­tial owned media asset for brands, but increas­ing­ly brands are exper­i­ment­ing with the demand for unbox­ings.

Dis­ney’s glob­al stunt lever­aged the pop­u­lar­i­ty and demand for the medi­um while adding an ele­ment of PR spec­ta­cle that won innu­mer­able head­lines and cov­er­age. It also worked in syn­er­gy with a social media cam­paign for #Force­Fri­day, which was des­tined to be pop­u­lar with a world­wide legion of fans and col­lec­tors.

Dis­ney’s live unbox­ing video also demon­strat­ed how a brand can add their own spin to the medi­um by offer­ing some­thing more extrav­a­gant than a typ­i­cal unbox­ing, cre­at­ing its own cul­tur­al moment.

Unbox­ing videos may have been around for the bet­ter part of a decade, but it appears brands are now start­ing to rec­og­nize the valid­i­ty of the for­mat. Dis­ney’s stunt may just mark the first in a wave of more brand unbox­ing videos.