How YouTube Influencer Marketing Created 2017's Toy of the Year

While some brands will only work with the most popular influencers, WowWee与各个层次的创作者合作, from those with hundreds of followers to those with millions. Doing so helps smaller creators develop their networks and build a relationship with the brand. It also helps build a more engaged following, Kayar believes.

Yes, influencers are paid—they don’t just do it for the toys. Creating a YouTube video that entertains an audience and communicates the spirit of a new product is work, 有影响力的人希望得到补偿. There isn’t an average price, since influencers are paid by their popularity. WowWee will pay a smaller influencer a couple thousand dollars, and up to a hundred thousand for a really popular one. 没错，一个视频最高10万美元.

“我认为谈论这些数字很重要, 因为肯定有很多, 我会说, lack of transparency within the industry and I think it’s important for brands to talk about what they’re looking into and the different influencers that they’re working with, and to start to educate about the work that these creators are doing,卡亚尔说。. “很多时候, I’ll find that creatives are very undervalued in their space, and they really deserve the compensation for the amount of production that they’re putting in.”

创造这个季节的玩具

When did WowWee realize it had something really special on its hands? 不是从头开始，而是接近. Once it had a working model and started showing it to toy retailers, 它总是得到同样的反应:“哇, 这是不同的. 我从来没见过这样的东西. 这很特别.”

While the team tried not to get too excited, they were aware they had a possible best-seller. But toy trends change quickly and the public is finicky, so there’s no such thing as a sure thing. Even Sydney Wiseman, the line’s creator, wasn’t absolutely certain until the day after Christmas. Once she and the rest of the team saw social media posts full of happy kids who had gotten Fingerlings, and when parents started writing online reviews saying how much their kids loved their new toys, 他们知道.

Fingerling Friday on YouTube was a big part of what propelled the toy in the right direction. 而WowWee之前也曾与网红合作过, 它从来没有发起过这么大的运动, 有这样的细节. A week or two after the event, WowWee started getting positive feedback. 这些玩具在全国范围内销售一空.

WowWee saw positive comments and strong video engagement rates following its event, but the metric it really cared about was shareability: “That’s a term people confuse with virality, but it’s really the shareability of content and the shareability of feedback that gets to that optimal measure of 信息 that you’re looking for,Kayar解释道. “当你让人们在事物上互相标记时, when you have them sharing something on their own pages and on their own channels, 当他们把东西和信息一起转发的时候, things like that is when you know it’s something that people want other people to know about.”

And that’s how WowWee created the biggest toy success in its history.

问题是，这家公司能否再次做到这一点?

finglings的继承者不是可爱的，而是可怕的. The company’s focus now is on Untamed Raptors, pocket-sized dinos that kids can tame or leave wild. To give them a strong send-off, WowWee once again turned to YouTube. 5月18日是凶残星期五, where multiple influencers put out videos about their toothy new friends. 因此，WowWee又推出了一款热门游戏? 等到圣诞节后的第二天你就知道了.

[This article appears in the July/August 2018 issue of 流媒体杂志 as "How YouTube Influencer Marketing Created the Toy of the Year"]

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