What Does Google Say?

At Google BrandLab, we help brands tap into the full potential of YouTube. Many sounds can trigger the calming sensation of ASMR, and brands should listen up. We are not just talking about an enormous engaged audience to tap; we are talking about an enormous engaged audience that is already using your brand. ASMRtists often employ objects, especially food products, to create the tingly effect: crinkling wrappers, chewing candy, cracking open cans. (A search for "beer ASMR" on YouTube returns over 81,000 video results.) Tic Tac, Swedish Fish, and Taco Bell are all brands that make cameos in YouTube creator videos.

KFC has embraced the trend. The actor George Hamilton, portraying Colonel Sanders, whispers sweet nothings about pocket squares and enjoys the sounds of KFC's new crispy fried chicken. "This is a community that is absolutely infatuated and enthusiastic about the sensorial experience of sound," KFC CMO Kevin Hochman said in The Washington Post. "There's a lot of comfort that's associated with ASMR, and that's what our food delivers."

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In 2015, BBDO created ASMR video ads in China for Dove chocolates that were designed to evoke the "tingling of silky smooth pleasure" consumers felt when eating the confections. The films were even put to scientific testing, and the results are being studied by neuroscientists.

Brands don't have to create their own ASMR videos to capitalize on the trend; interested audiences can still be reached. Who in particular? Both men and women are interested in ASMR content, with viewers skewing young—18- to 24-year-olds comprise around half of the interested audience. Most (77%) are also looking at beauty and fitness content.

Beauty products, in fact, play a starring role in the trend. Makeup tutorials have long been popular on YouTube, but after viewers realized how relaxing they were, many tutorials now double as ASMR videos. Some creators take the role-play approach, simulating the feeling of being in a makeup artist's chair, while others use makeup brushes to create soothing noises. 

Perhaps less obvious, a large majority of the ASMR audience also skews technophile and gamer. People interested in ASMR across the web are more than twice as likely to be in the market for consumer tech products like laptops, mobile phones, and game consoles.