Much is said about the increase in social network traffic
among teens, but many tweens and teens are also heading into virtual
worlds. Unlike social networks, these digital worlds allow users to
interact with one another via 3D representations, or avatars. And
unlike the most well known virtual world, Second Life, a number of virtual realms caters directly to a younger demographic.
The space is still so new, there isn't a clear tally of the virtual
world population; yet the number of registered users for kids and teen
worlds is growing. Urban teen environment Doppelganger has nearly
150,000 registered members, while PG-13 site There.com has 1 million
members, 70 percent of whom are between the ages of 13 and 26.
Self-described "edutainment" site for tweens, Whyville, has 2.3 million
users.
"The audience in any given kids virtual is so small
right now, but nonetheless the view is these things will grow rapidly
in the next few years, so getting a grasp of this marketing knowledge
is going to be important to have," said Joe Laszlo, senior analyst with
Jupiter Research. "The short term benefit is the highly engaged
audience….The long term view is these things will get bigger over time
and become a more important social space."
Adult-oriented
Second Life maintains a laissez-faire approach to its virtual world,
providing users the ability to purchase digital tracts of land or
virtual currency with real world funds, and does not intervene in most
transactions.
This has opened the door for other companies to
build virtual worlds with controls and regulations intended to protect
children and appeal to parents. Such sites can be classified into three
categories. Virtual worlds like Club Penguin, Disney's Toon Town,
WebKinz and Nicktropolis
mainly are for kids aged 8 to 14 or younger, while PG-13 regulated
worlds like Doppelganger, There.com and MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach are
for more mature users aged 15 and up. Finally, tween worlds like
anime-oriented Gaia Online, and edutainment site Whyville straddle the
line between the two.
"It's reaching the new demographic that
isn't watching television anymore. They are on the computer and this is
what they do," said Dean Khial, vice president of business development
and expansion for Kitson, a boutique clothing store. "From a business
standpoint it's a great opportunity to reach a huge demographic, not
only that knows Kitson, but the huge number that doesn’t know us that
will learn about us through the virtual world."
Kitson, along
with hip-hop themed clothing brand Rocawear, both recently launched
stores as part of virtual world Doppelganger to reach teens. Not only
did Kitson have an exact replica of its Los Angeles-based flagship
store placed within the virtual world allowing avatars to purchase
digital Kitson clothes; it also directly linked to the store's
ecommerce site. If users like what they have virtually, they can
purchase the item directly from through Doppelganger, and at a
discount.
Simply putting a banner or virtual billboard into
Doppelganger wouldn't have effectively reached users there, according
to Andrew Littlefield, founder and chief creative officer for
Doppelganger.
Attracting the Savviest Market
"The biggest problem you face with actually addressing teens today is
they've been the target of the world's most sophisticated marketing
campaigns since they were babies," said Littlefield. "Anything that you
bring to advertise to them too obviously really doesn't work."
To appeal to teens, advertisers and virtual worlds often team-up around
themes that are clear fits, such as music, entertainment, clothing and
electronics, but marketers need to engage their audience to keep them
coming back. Recently, There.com signed an agreement with Capitol Music
Group to bring music artists into its world, and created a series of
virtual nightclubs for them to play in. More than that, users will be
able to watch videos and interact with band members.
"The
artists are realizing they need to be more involved with their market,"
said Michael Wilson, CEO of There. "And this is a more efficient way to
meet a fan, to change the engagement with them from a few moments to
minutes."
While worlds targeting older teens can provide ad
opportunities to potential marketers, others intended for younger users
have disallowed any form of advertising whatsoever. Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis
launched this year without advertising, and Club Penguin, another
kid-oriented world, "Made a very conscious decision to have a strict
no-advertising policy," according to Karen Mason, communications
director for Club Penguin. Instead, Club Penguin draws its funding from
subscriptions and some retail clothing sales.
The space
between ad-free zones and teen-centric worlds will "probably be the
category that will be the fertile ground for advertisers," said Reuben
Steiger, CEO of Millions of Us, a social media agency. "And the most
successful ones will be the ones that use programs for the
participation of the company that enhance the overall experience rather
than feeling intrusive."
Already, tween-oriented worlds have
seen a number of success stories as advertisers have reached out to a
teenage market. For example, both Gaia Online and Whyville worked with
Toyota on a Scion car
promotion. After launching a virtual car ownership promotion "In the
first three hours we had 29,000 Gaia users getting a car and showing it
off to their friends," according to Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online.
Virtual Word-of-Mouth
The key to promoting to any age group in virtual worlds is to give them an incentive to participate, according to Ian Schafer, ClickZ columnist
and CEO of Deep Focus. His firm ran a promotion on Gaia Online for the
New Line film "The Last Mimzy," offering members a virtual magic
stuffed rabbit for their avatars similar to the one in the movie, if
they watched a preview online.
"Their avatars were able to
carry it around, and you start getting word-of-mouth with that
promotion," said Schafer. Afterwards, participants were asked whether
they had seen the movie during its opening weekend. "Fifty percent said
'Yes,' they had," said Schafer.
Tween virtual worlds have also moved beyond pure advertising in efforts to educate users. In addition to virtual music concerts,
Whyville introduced its users to a simulated ecological catastrophe to
help promote the children's version of Al Gore's book "An Inconvenient
Truth."
"Any other medium can simply promote the book, but at
Whyville we created global warming within the world of Whyville and the
kids are dealing with it," said Jay Goss, chief operating officer of
Numedeon, Whyville’s parent company. "We just had a tropical storm
occur in Whyville."
The company also partnered with the Center
for Disease Control (CDC) to help promote kids getting flu shots by
creating a virtual epidemic that players' avatars would have to be
inoculated from. The CDC also used Whyville as part of a larger online
initiative to inform families about the dangers of influenza.
"The thing that was most impressive about this activity was the sheer
numbers we got. It ran for six weeks in Whyville and was set up with no
promotion; we just showed up one day," said Erin Edgerton, content lead
for interactive media for the division of ehealth marketing at the
CDC's national center for health marketing. "And in the six weeks there
were 134,421 visits to the vaccination room. We virtually vaccinated
just under 19,572 unique Whyvill-ians."
"It's really reaching
these tweens the way they want to be reached, but giving them something
to do while interacting with the advertisers message, as opposed to
passively receiving the advertisers message," said Numedeon's Goss.
Best Practices Emerge
As advertisers and marketers explore virtual worlds to reach a younger
demographic, best practices are emerging. "The first thing to do is
spend a significant amount of time in that virtual world," said Deep
Focus's Schafer. "Unless you understand the behavior of the people in
that virtual world you are going to come across as disingenuous or
inauthentic."
As virtual worlds mature, even if their users
don't, industry watchers predict a growing number of virtual worlds for
kids and teens will launch, and marketing opportunities will follow.
"To not add a virtual world to your media mix is the same as saying you
don't know where your audience is. This is where they are," said Erik
Hauser, executive creative director and founder of experiential agency
Swivel Media.
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