Habbo Hotel developer Sulake launched Habble, a new measurement tool that helps marketers track the level of online conversations taking place about their brands in the teen virtual world. The company believes this new tools could provide fly-on-the-wall insight into the "media-savvy" under-18 demographic.

Habble was designed to enable advertisers to measure the value return from their ads featured in Habbo Hotel. Working alongside existing metrics like click-through rates, time spent, friending levels, and impressions, advertisers can monitor how often their brand's name, slogan, or key phrases are mentioned, then cross-reference them with other data to see if their messages are reaching Habbo Hotel's audience.

Sulake reassures users that all of their conversations remain anonymous and that advertisers do not actually have access to their personal information. Habbo Hotel's global userbase currently consists of more than 155 million registered avatars, with most of its users aged under 19 years.

The tool was recently tested for MTV International during an in-game campaign promoting the MTV European Music Awards, and Habble was able to record that its users conversations around the awards increased by 371 percent in the UK and 762 percent in the Netherlands.

"Habble helps brands understand if a message is getting through," says Sulake's SVP of Global Ad Sales Phil Guest. "To engage with young people, brands first need to become part of the conversation, and this new tool provides another level of insight into this hard to reach demographic."

He continues, "It is helping our advertisers understand the value of running advertising promotions in Habbo Hotel, not only showing the uplift from a promotion, but more interestingly, the continued discussion long after the brand promotion has finished. Knowing this, brand marketers can build on the conversation by engaging brand advocates to spread the word."