Dive Brief:

• Product reviews and “unboxing” videos — wherein consumers open boxes with new products — are both popular types of videos on YouTube, and now the video platform is offering shoppable ads spots to brands on these videos. 
• YouTube is touting these ad spots as "a growing opportunity" for brands ahead of the holiday shopping season. YouTube enables brands to buy clickable ads that occupy part of the screen during the "unboxing" or product review. 
• “Unboxing” videos alone have already reached more than one billion views this year, representing 60 million hours of watched video on YouTube in 2015.

Dive Insight:

YouTube is trying to make it easier for consumers to buy products seen in its videos, effectively making it a one-click process from video to shopping.

Taking advantage of two popular video formats that already center around specific products, YouTube is selling shoppable ads that feature YouTube personalities who disclose the video has been paid for and is shoppable. The videos include clickable links for viewers to buy the products that the YouTube host is talking about in the video.

“This is Google getting closer to commerce,” Jason Tabeling, gvp of media at global agency Razorfish, told Digiday. “For a lot of brands, it will be a challenge not to have that control over the content, but brands are losing that control more and more already.”

Research from Citi Retail Services found 60% of consumers were open to making purchases through social media. Facebook leads the way as the top influencer at 35%, followed by YouTube at 25%, and Pinterest at 19%.

Google found that 68% of its users would rather have product ads come from "people like me" than a brand, but that theory will be tested through these shoppable ads. 

“Authenticity is a real component here, and people can smell out when they’re being sold to," Tabeling added. "These product videos are popular because they’re homegrown and unbiased, so brands have to be careful.”