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A vast number of child-directed videos are on the YouTube platform, some from popular “kid influencers” who review toys, tell stories, or record videos of their daily lives. Branded content placement in kid influencer videos is used to market to child viewers, but it is unknown how common this practice is.
Researchers watched and coded videos from the five highest-ranked kid influencer channels (e.g., Ryan's Toy Review), which had accrued over 48 billion views and over 38 million subscribers as of 2019. On these channels, among 179 videos that featured food or beverages and had accrued over 1 billion views, most (90%) featured unhealthy branded products such as McDonald's, Hershey's, and Kinder, and other candy, sugar-sweetened beverages, or…