Some whole new worlds for advertising
Usually, advertisers try to appeal not to actual people, but to the people those potential customers would like to be. Whether the product is a car, a tube of toothpaste, or a new home, marketers want to convince people that their lives will be better once they've invested in a product or service. But in a relatively new trend, thousands of people are using virtual online worlds like Second Life to live their own ideal lives through avatars, effectively creating the alter-egos that advertisers want to target. "Although some people create avatars that look and act like their real selves, many people use the chance to be what they always wanted to be or at least want to try for awhile," says an article in today's Boston Globe.
Second Life and other virtual worlds can be incredibly vast, with communities that often mirror the real world. The content is created by the online residents, and includes a wide variety of virtual businesses and services (even real estate brokerage). Inevitably, real-world companies have taken notice, and have started sponsoring virtual events, setting up virtual storefronts, and so on. "...[A]s eyeballs migrate away from traditional forms of media -- television, radio, print -- virtual worlds offer a new way for businesses to inject their brands. And the interactivity is almost unlimited," says David Fleck, vice president of marketing for the company that operates Second Life. The possibilities of marketing to avatars and their real-world creators has even attracted the attention of the Harvard Business Review, which recently explored the topic in a lengthy article and a podcast. "Given the potential, marketers need to acquaint themselves with the phenomenon of avatars and to consider whether it requires a rethinking of marketing messages and channels," writes Harvard Business Review senior editor Paul Hemp. "...[C]onceiving of avatars and other online personae as a new set of potential customers, one that can be analyzed and segmented, provides a useful way to think about new marketing opportunities."
