Welcome to Ryan’s World – Case Study – Arts & Humanities Assignment Help

Assignment Task

 

Case
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this case study, students should be able to:
•    describe the success behind Ryan’s World as a YouTube brand;
•    appreciate the growth of influencers, vlogging and embedded advertising as a marketing strategy;
•    assess the extent to which embedded advertising is a powerful technique to stimulate child influence on adult buying behavior;
•    explain the attractiveness of vlogging as a marketing strategy;
•    discuss the ethical issues raised in the case.

Introduction
“Hey guys! Today we’re going to….” is one of the more frequent, simple, and unfussy opening greetings super child influencer Ryan Kaji (real name Ryan Guan) uses to kick off his YouTube edutainment videos (edutainment is a portmanteau of education and entertainment). Ryan’s World (previously known as Ryan ToysReview) launched on March 17, 2015, when Ryan was only 3 years old. Ryan’s mother, Loann, shakily recorded him unboxing and playing with toys at home. Although the channel was initially quite slow in gaining an audience, Ryan’s online venture soon skyrocketed. “He is now the face of a fast-growing toy empire” (NBC Today, 2018). Ryan is also one of the first pioneers to successfully transition from newbie YouTuber to toy industry tycoon. Ryan’s phenomenal financial success has enabled his family to reside in one of their luxury family homes in Texas, United States (Spangler, 2019).
Entirely oblivious to Ryan’s natural relatability, and to the commercial potential the YouTube edutainment format presented, Ryan’s mother unknowingly launched the career of one of the first world-famous child vloggers (combination of video and blogger). The pioneering Ryan ToysReview channel grew fast during a 5-year period to host more than 1,700 short videos, each rarely lasting more than 30 minutes (YouTube, 2020a). The sensational videos are emotionally demonstrative, and typically feature non-verbal expressions including an array of goggle eyes and incredulously gaping mouths. As of May 2020, the channel had collected 25 million sticky subscribers (YouTube, 2020a), clocked more than 39 million cumulative views, and secured an audience worth approximately USD 26 million per annum (Social Blade, 2020). This armchair case study aims to appreciate the recipe and ingredients that make Ryan’s channel so successful. It debates whether the attention-grabbing approach is too addictive for impressionably credulous young viewers—or, if Ryan’s on-screen projection is too friendly, masquerading as an idealized, perfect child-next-door. This alluring persona may seem to have everything an 8-year-old child could ever desire. Still, how does the brand consistently maintain empathetic engagement, project fun, entertaining video content, and make the featured toys look so easy to operate?