Advertising For Kids: Are They Ready?
With the sometimes instantaneous, almost sure-fire popularity of many of today's virtual worlds for kids, many marketers are, quite reasonably, seeing a lot of advertising and branding opportunities. When we talked to eMarketer's Debra Aho Williamson, she theorized that while adults seem to use virtual worlds to experience, to some extent, a fantasy life, kids are far more likely to use them to be themselves, to express their own interests -- and that includes the brands they want to consume. Recall one of the highlights of the Ypulse Tween Mashup, where representatives from Stardoll and Cartoon Doll Emporium said that their users were practically begging for name-branded clothing for their virtual dolls.
Which does beg the question that CNET asks in their latest article on the subject: Are kids ready for ads in virtual worlds? From the article:
"This kind of marketing is designed to operate at a subconscious level. And kids don't know how to think critically about how someone's trying to get them to be loyal to a brand or buy their products," said Kathryn Montgomery, a professor in the School of Communication at American University and author of Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce and Childhood in the Age of the Internet.Montgomery said the purpose of ads in 3D worlds is often to blur the lines between content and product marketing, and that that's not a new concept. Product companies creating branded content to appeal to kids is as old as the first days of television. But Montgomery and others say virtual worlds and related games change the equation for brand marketers because a child's interaction and emotional engagement is so high.
Generally, those we've spoken to here at Worlds in Motion have opined that all virtual world advertising, not just that for children, should be integrated so as to make a contribution to the virtual world, in the form of items that the participants can actually use to enhance their experience or personalize their character in some way.
It's true that virtual world play is often built on, or inspired by real-world environments; avatar technology is progressing and environments are developing in such a way that realism, or at least the approximate impression of a living, breathing world is currently desirable -- even fantasy, such as a futuristic planet, should appear and behave in a lifelike, physically consistent way. Could it be then, that users want brands to be a real part of their virtual lives, just as they are unavoidable in our real lives?
Kids are exposed to branding from the point of entry into this world, from their first McDonald's toy to their favorite cartoon properties. It's tough to imagine that a virtual playspace for kids could be any more damaging than a real one, especially if the trend continues of forming ad properties that contribute to a virtual world and mesh well with it, rather than simply bombarding users with banners.
[Via CNet]
