Metaverse Marketing: Games and Virtual Worlds in Product Promotion

Making Sense of Business in Virtual Worlds Metaverse Marketing Games and Virtual Worlds in Product Promotion Berlin, den 6.11.2007

Welcome to Berlin ;)

Sebastian Küpers

Chief Creative Officer

The Otherland Group

Full-Service Agency for Virtual Worlds

Play World of Warcraft since 2005

Resident of Second Life since 2006

2 Questions:

1. Why should you think about investing in Virtual Worlds?

2. How to do marketing and advertising within a Virtual World?

What do we talk about?

I am sure you've heard of ...

... and of course ...

But that are only the „basics“ ....

... it's much more interesting if you have also heard of ...

... and many many more ...

More than 3 dozen Virtual Worlds

About 80 Million active Residents within these worlds

... and it still growths ...

10% each month over all VWs

in detail:

Kids-Worlds and 2.5D Worlds accessible with a Web-Browser grow much faster ATM, than ...

... Client / Server based VW's like Second Life, There, Entropia Universe etc.

By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life”, but not necessarily in Second Life, according to Gartner, Inc.

They way we use Virtual Worlds will change!

Today: Nobody says anymore ...

... I will go into the Internet now ...

You say:

“ I'll buy me a book on Amazon“

“ I'll watch a movie on iTunes“

“ I'll tell him, what do do” (via Email)

This will change here aswell!

You will say:

„ I will attend a product presentation“

„ I will meet some friends to discuss this or that“

„ I will have a look what's new from IKEA this season“

Window Snyder, Mozilla Foundation

“ Instead of Web sites like we have now, we'll have 3-D representations in the virtual world [..]“

“ [..] The browser, though, will have to go through a lot of changes of its own to enable all of this“

IBM has shown a solution for browser based access for three different virtual worlds in London last week!

The barriers will be lowered massively

The access will be context driven

Fact is ...

... more and more people spend several HOURS / MONTH in VWs

For example:

Facebook: 3 hours / month

Second Life: 20-40 hours / month

This media usage is substituting ...

... less television

... less other media channels

1. Why should you think about investing in Virtual Worlds?

Anwser: Because this channel will gain so much market share, that it becomes business critical ... AND ..

... it offers you ways to communicate with your community ...

... which other channels can't offer ...

... and which will be requested by your community in the near future

So what are these possiblities?

First: What do the residents?

Second: What can I do there?

1. They create a virtual presence

Avatar Picture

Compared to Web2.0 ...

Avatar Picture

2. They communicate with others

BUT: in real-time

3. They create content

Picture: blogger.com setup a blog

4. They do things together and share a social experience

Picture: They go Shopping

Picture: They go Dancing

Picture: They attend events

Picture: They havent romantic moments

???

Can we do thing together like this in the web?

Example:

When you are on any site on Amazon ...

... thousands of others look at this site at the same time aswell ...

... but you don't see them!

In a Virtual World you would!

You could talk to them!

Get direct recommendations

You could find new interesting people

And why is that possbile?

The Avatar brings us not only a virtual presence ...

... but even more you have proximity & distance in an 3D environment!

That doesn't exist in the web!

So what should YOU do there?

First: Don't make the same mistakes, we all have done in the web!

Don't just copy an existing model on new medium!

Broschures as static webpages in an interactive medium ...

... has been a bad idea!

Linking to webpages or just setting up buildings in a 3D enviroment, where everybody is TALKING and DOES things together with others ...

... is bad idea aswell ;)

In the web we needed to learn, what is possbile beyond adaption of existing well known models ...

... in Virtual Worlds we need to do this again!

Find the approaches your company can realize within a Virtual World, which you couldn't do before. Start experimenting with them!

First: What do the residents?

Second: What can I do there?

1. Allright, you can setup your virtual presence ... that's o.k. ;)

2. You need to communicate with your community in-world ... ... in REALTIME ... ... FACE TO FACE ...

3. You can give residents something to do ... ... maybe think of „crowdsourcing“ ... ... involve them directly, because they are really there!

4. Provide them possibilities to have shared experience with your brand!

Get them involved and be an active part of the communication in-world!

How can this look like?

First Steps:

Hype?

Making Sense Of Business in Virtual Worlds Wir verstehen uns als Full-Service Dienstleister im Bereich virtueller Welten, der Maßnahmen messbar macht und in den Kontext einer integrierten Kommunikation stellt.

Against the prevalent opinion ...

Advertising in Virtual Worlds works!

CTRs between 5 and 12 percent

BUT:

It is important WHAT you advertise

Linking to the web is a bad idea!

You should keep residents in-world

... and ... provide them a medium specific offer from you company!

Advertise your in-world activities!

Second Step:

In-World Activities?

Two examples:

Pontiac Case einfügen

What can we learn from this projects?

2. How to do marketing and advertising within a Virtual World?

Be part of the communication

Give residents something to do

Provide them the possibility to have shared social experiences

That is, what it's really about in a Virtual World

And now I tell you the best ...

... everything is measurable, AND ...

... you can connect this data with existing back-end systems!

It's about Analytics

It's about API's

It's about Targeting

You can measure:

What have they done at my presence?

Which events have they attend?

What do they look at?

What do they talk about?

... and ...

What interests do they have?

Let me explain the last point:

FAZIT

The market is growing!

It will become relevant for you!

You strategy for Virtual Worlds is similar to you Web2.0 strategy

You can have real-time conversations with your community!

You can get direct feedback from your Community!

You can deepen the relationship by providing shared experiences with your BRAND

You can collect all this data and enrich existing SYSTEMS with it

Let's make sense of business in virtual worlds now!

Thank You !

And don't forget your Feedback: feedback.berlin.web2expo.com

Contact

Sebastian Küpers, Chief Creative Officer

The Otherland Group Köpenicker Str. 48/49 (DAZ) 10179 Berlin-Mitte, Germany

sebastian.kuepers@otherland-group.com +49 [151] 1248 40 32 http://www.otherland-group.com http://otherland.blogs.com

Metaverse Marketing: Games and Virtual Worlds in Product Promotion

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