Private channels introduced the Spanish to audiovisual modalities that were unprecedented until the expansion of the offer on the small screen, as it was called then, long before the advent of smartphones, consoles and the long etcetera that make up the current scene.
One of the services that attracted the most attention was the so-called “teleshopping”, that is, the sale of products that were promoted in a very different format from conventional advertisements and that, in general, could be purchased after requesting them by phone. Today they still occupy hours and hours of broadcasting, preferably at dawn.
Four decades later, social networks like Instagram are also redefining genres and formulas that have little to do with the traditional ones in the classic media or in the new media. And, in this context, a reinvention of teleshopping emerges with force, which is also based on the distribution of fake or second-hand items.
As can be expected on this platform, the main actors in the phenomenon are young people, and even teenagers. These are kids who, thanks to their expertise on the internet or their personal contacts, are able to get imitations of clothing, accessories or other consumer items at a very good price.
A complementary business is based on already used material, especially technology, equally cheap. After getting hold of this catalog, the boys offer it on Instagram. But they do not do so by taking advantage of the resources that this page makes available to them. Its advertising artifacts are very sober: explicit texts, with some emoticon, on a static black background.
It might be thought that this proposal is in clear contradiction with respect to the standard in this network... However, it works. The clients of these accounts, whose managers must previously accept the navigators who request it, are perfectly aware that the products are counterfeits or second-hand items.
And they know that the sellers got them at a lower price than they will pay. However, it pays for them to buy them, since the same parts, in the legal market, would be much more expensive. This modus operandi is similar to the one applied by professional profiles of the great counterfeiting powers: China, Thailand, Turkey...
The formal concern of succinct and synthetic audiovisual spots continues to be far removed from the obvious and redundant blocks of teleshopping. On Instagram, most of the stories, due to their intent and finishing, are at the stylistic antipodes of the digital posters of these modern illegal, or perhaps illegal, advertisements.
According to analysts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), imitations move around 2.5% of world trade. The second-hand market is booming, as certified by technicians from the Boston Consulting Group and Vestiaire Collective. Without the complicity of digital screens, both growth rates would be lower.
