The French Luxury Goods Industry Depends on Anticipation. YouTube Unboxing Has Industrialised That Anticipation. France Has Mixed Feelings.
PARIS — The unboxing video — the YouTube genre in which the presenter films themselves opening a purchased or gifted item while providing running commentary on the packaging, the contents, and their emotional response to both — has found specific resonance with French luxury goods, which are packaged with a care and intention that rewards this kind of forensic attention. The Hermes box, the Chanel bag box, the Dior perfume coffret: these packages are designed to be opened meaningfully. The unboxing video is, in this sense, doing what the brands intended, at scale, for an audience of people who cannot afford the item but want to experience its opening.
The French Luxury Brand Response
French luxury houses have responded to unboxing culture with the cautious enthusiasm appropriate for a phenomenon that provides enormous organic brand marketing at zero cost and simultaneously potentially devalues the exclusivity that their pricing depends on. The Hermes unboxing video that reaches five million views has introduced the brand to five million people who were not previously aware of it. Some of these people will eventually be customers. The brand has done no marketing and spent no budget. The creator was the marketing. The creator owns the content. The brand owns the association. Both parties benefit in ways that do not require acknowledgment. According to LVMH’s annual brand communications reporting, organic social content now represents the largest driver of brand awareness for their luxury portfolio. The unboxing video is, accidentally, their most effective advertising medium.
The Packaging Itself
The French gift box is a product in its own right. The ribbon, the tissue, the box quality — these are not cost centres in the French luxury production model. They are the first layer of the experience. The customer who receives a Parisian luxury item and opens it through the ribbon and the tissue and the structured box has had an experience calibrated to begin before the product is visible. The unboxing video documents this calibration with the forensic attention of someone who understands that the packaging is not packaging. It is prologue. Paris writes excellent prologues. The main text is also good. Both are worth filming.
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