YOUTUBE, THE ATTENTION ECONOMY, AND DIGITAL MARKETING IN ASMR VIDEOS

Although the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) phenomenon has grown notably in Mexico in recent years, local YouTube channels lack effective and continued use of digital marketing strategies and tactics as reflected in their sponsored videos, in contrast to the most popular YouTube ASMR channels, which are essentially English-speaking. After completing a detailed review on YouTube, this article compares both groups and argues that, with a few changes, Mexican ASMR creators can benefit from marketing strategies used by the more popular creators from other countries. By doing this, Mexican creators could ride the nascent wave of attention economy that posits that cognition is a commodity that can be monetized. The analysis of both groups of channels found that Mexican ASMR creators display, more often than not, lower production quality, little knowledge of basic marketing concepts, as well as lower posting frequency than English-speaking videos when compared to their more popular international counterparts. These findings are discussed under the marketing concepts of reach, relevance, and resonance as well as the attention economy construct.