Claire’s embraces haul vloggers

Clever Claire’s has tapped into the haul vlogger trend with a shiny new website. One of the first fashion brands to harness the power of haul vloggers, the Claire’s team trawled the streets of America scouting for girls to video blog for the site. The strangely addictive Youtube craze whereby teen girls hit the malls then upload a ‘shop and tell’ video blog is a perfect fit for a youth-focused brand like Claire’s. The retailer’s three brand ambassadors blog and vlog on its site, (hopefully) building a cult following and doling out tips and advice to current and future customers. There’s also a chance for wannabe vloggers to nominate themselves as a future ‘Claire’s Curator’.

It makes total sense to me for retailers to engage with their customers by inviting them to say nice things about their products on their sites (I’m guessing these teens are paid, if not in cold, hard cash, then surely in clothes). Customers trust the opinion of other consumers and especially when the gushing comes in the form of an authentic, home-made looking video. It also doesn’t hurt that the products being raved about are also featured alongside the blog posts to instantly click and buy.

As young consumers tire of celebrities, it seems likely that a new type of ‘blog star’ might take over. The benefit of haul vlogging – a bit like QVC – is it brings the personality closer to the consumer, allowing for a more engaging user experience. With the news that Forever 21 is about to land in the UK, I wonder when we’ll start to see UK youth retailers utilising haul tactics on their websites.

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