Try it
before you buy it
Virtual world marketing was all the rage in '06, and then, it wasn't. And 2008 hasn't done much to clarify whether it's in again - or totally out.
Just 1.9 percent of marketers are using virtual worlds, compared with blogs (25.6 percent), online video (24.4) and social networks (18.1), according to a DMA study.
But what about virtual merchandising?
Users of virtual worlds create avatars, or digital personalities, to interact with each other. Avatars, like real humans, need very little to survive - food, water, shelter - but they also need clothes.
Apparel retailers, recognizing that participants often use avatars to explore new styles, relationships and behaviors, are capitalizing on the opportunity to introduce their new clothing lines to teens and tweens through branded boutiques in virtual worlds:
- Niche brands K-Swiss, bebe, and Eberjey (lingerie and sleepwear) are building their brands on Makena Technologies' virtual world, There.com. They join major brand Coca-Cola, which also has a (disappointing) presence on the better-known Second Life.
- Kohl's opened a boutique on Stardoll.com, charging "Stardollars" for avatar outfits (which range between $1 and $5 in "real" dollars) and received an overwhelming response - getting some 2.2 million visits and selling 1.8 million items in its first 16 days.
- Sears set up its own boutique on teen site Zwinky.com and sold 850,000 virtual items in a little more than two weeks.
Still, brands consider revenue from virtual merch as "negligible," writes the Wall Street Journal.
Though Charles River Venture Partners has put a $1.5 billion price tag on the virtual goods industry, the value lies not in the sale of goods but in the interactive experience the (young!) consumers have with the products.
And that experience can convert to real sales: Kohls' virtual boutique, for example, sent 97,000 visitors to the very real Kohls.com.
Virtual goods can influence real-life purchasing decisions, notes There.com CEO Michael Wilson (via Mediapost). More brands will introduce them as a way to increase customer engagement and we will, in turn, see the "halo effect" cross into real life, he said.
