Free Advertisement
Even though Brandy Melville does not have formal advertising, their products still get advertisement through different aspects of the media, like YouTube. Search Brady Melville, and you will find hundreds of shopping videos, hauls, and opinion pieces on the brand's clothing. Mia Maples, a famous YouTuber with over a million subscribers, is just one example of the many girls who do free advertising for Brandy. Her unsponsored , 17 minute long video of her trying on $500 worth of Brandy clothing goes to show how Brandy does not need to pay anyone in order to have people wanting and willing to pay for their products. YouTube does all of the work for them.
Mia Maples, a pretty, blond, and skinny girl in her twenties uploaded this video this past July that has gotten over 600 thousand views and 20 thousand views. ​She currently has over 1.6 million subscribers, and many of them could not wait for this video to happen. The video was simply her trying on clothes that she ordered and sharing how she felt about each item, otherwise known as a clothing haul.
Viewers could instantly see from the title that Mia spent $500 on Brandy Melville merchandise, automatically giving other people the incentive to spend a lot of money at Brandy. Mia says, “You’re not gonna do this much, so just get what you want. Cry about your bank card later.” From the beginning until the end, Mia does not hold back her excitement​. Her thin figure makes the cropped clothes seem as though they were made for her body. "It fits me perfectly” like it would for any thin girl with minimal figure. It's easy to imagine other young girls watching this video, who admire Mia, wanting to look just like her. From her body shape to her clothes, young girls aspire to be the beautiful, thriving girl they see on the screen. They want to fit into the mold of what they think girls should be like. Even Mia got her inspiration from other women. She says, “I saw this on their Instagram and I was just like: There’s NO WAY I will not have that shirt in my closest” and “I remember I saw Madison Beer wear this in a picture on her Instagram, and I was like UNREAL. I need it.” Mia admits to buying some of her items because she saw them on other women that she thought looked beautiful in them. And seeing Mia Maples wear their clothing, makes other girls want their clothing twice as much. Whether it was a girl on their website or a celebrity on their Instagram, the cycle of Brandy's free advertisement continues.
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Another part that stood out in Mia's video was when she explains why she chose to purchase one top with a car on the front. She says she saw it on yet another celebrity and thought that her boyfriend would be impressed with it because he is into cars. “He will be like so impressed when he sees me wearing this," she says. Unknowingly, Mia is perpetuating the notion that women should dress and do things to please their men. Instead of saying that she thought the top would make her feel confident or special, she decides to buy it in order to get attention from her boyfriend. Now the hundreds of thousands of girls who watched her video subconsciously believe that this shirt will get guys to be more into them. And by saying things like “I’m just so happy” makes others think that they will also be happy if they have Brandy's clothes. They want the seemingly perfect, joyful, beautiful, successful, and boyfriend filled life of Mia Maples, and they believe that the pricy, revealing, "one size fits all" clothing from Brandy Melville will get them there.
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