YouTube Unboxing Goes From Family Fun to Big Business

Three of the five most-watched YouTube channels aim squarely at the child market.

Known as unboxing videos, they’re racking up hundreds of millions of views from youngsters (and adults) strangely transfixed by the surprise inside of say, a Kinder egg. They’re also garnering increasing ad income for their creators, who give unsolicited recommendations of products from top toymakers like Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc.
Last week, three of the 10 most-viewed channels on YouTube were devoted to unboxing. --
According to online analytics firm OpenSlate, the biggest earner on YouTube in 2014 was an unboxing channel called DisneyCollector BR, which had 380 million monthly views and took in $4.8 million last year. That beat Taylor Swift’s “Blank Spaces’’ video, which earned $4.1 million.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/youtube-unboxing-makes-stars-of-parents-and-children