As I sit here in my kitchen looking for a job, my daughter Tyler and her friend have the big HP notebook fired up and pointed at Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom. Tyler, who just entered her teen years, has been playing around in virtual worlds for a few years now. She has as many friends in these communities as she does in real life and she is not alone. Millions of younger kids are spending significant time in virtual worlds like Disney’s Toontown, VMK, Club Penguin, Webkinz and Whyville. The market for “safe” teen social sites and virtual worlds continues to grow as well with MTVs virtual worlds, There.com, Doppelganger and others.
According to a recent study, 71 percent of tweens and teens between the ages of 9 and 17 visit social/virtual world sites weekly. There isn’t a clear tally of the virtual world population, but the number of registered users for kids and teen worlds is growing. From the study:
Urban teen environment Doppelganger has nearly 150,000 registered members, while PG-13 site There.com has 1 million members, 70 percent of whom are between the ages of 13 and 26. Self-described “edutainment” site for tweens, Whyville, has 2.3 million users.
As has been pointed out in numerous studies, many kids are watching less television, preferring instead to spend time on the internet. In the last week alone, my daugher has watched maybe 6 hours of TV, but has spent three times that much time on YouTube, VMK and other social sites. I’m beginning to think the computer is somehow physically attached to her as she takes it everwhere.
Enter the Marketers
Over at ClickZ, Matthew Nelson published a good article last month which discusses the the marketing landscape in youth oriented virtual worlds. He points out that in the PG-13 worlds, marketers are quite active in promoting specific items that appeal to todays teens (clothing, music, electronics). The challenge here is to find ways to engage them. As Nelson points out, this audience has been the target of sophisticated campaigns since they were babies. They recognize when they are being marketed to and will simply ingnore the message if it doesn’t add value to them.
To appeal to teens, advertisers and virtual worlds often team-up around themes that are clear fits, such as music, entertainment, clothing and electronics, but marketers need to engage their audience to keep them coming back. Recently, There.com signed an agreement with Capitol Music Group to bring music artists into its world, and created a series of virtual nightclubs for them to play in. More than that, users will be able to watch videos and interact with band members.
“The artists are realizing they need to be more involved with their market,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of There. “And this is a more efficient way to meet a fan, to change the engagement with them from a few moments to minutes.”
Nelson points out that there has been conscious decision among the young kid oriented sites to disallow all in-world advertising, but that’s not to say that the sites themselves aren’t powerful marketing vehicles for the brands that own them. The point of sites like Nicktropolis, Toontown & VMK is to get kids to interact and engage with the brand. Spend any time in VMK and you will see all kinds of in-world ad for Disney properties.
Youth Are Receptive to Marketers IF….
A recent study conducted by Grunwald Associates found that kids (9 to 17-year olds) are not only spending significant time in social sites, but are willing to engage with advertisers in those spaces is they are approached in the right way (i.e. must be relevant and perceived as adding value).
Disney obviously understands the attraction of social/virtual worlds to their target consumer (kids) and are aggressively moving to expand their presence. They are planning new virtual worlds around specific properties like Pirates of the Carribean and just this week bought Club Penguin. By simply renaming it “Disney’s Club Penguin” club penguin fans become Disney fans. Others brands, such as Capital Music Group, are partnering with virtual worlds to build persistent experiences for their consumers to interact with. If you market products to youth, social/virtual worlds are clearly channels that you need be exploring. These are two examples of what I think are successful approaches to marketing in social/virtual worlds.
Do you have some examples to share (good or bad)? What are the big pitfalls of marketing to youth through these channels.
Discuss……
NextUp 
I think that marketing to kids on the Internet is fine as long as it is done in an honest way. These are kids!
The kids of today are the marketers of tomorrow. They are smarter than you think, so if you are going to market to kids, I think you better know what you are doing.
Jason, Your last sentence sums it up. They ARE smarter than some marketers and know when they’re being “sold to”. Thanks for the comment.
I agree with Jason, marketing to kids is fine, but should do in honest way, they know which is best although they are just a kid!
Jason, Your last sentence sums it up. They ARE smarter than some marketers and know when they’re being “sold to”
While my target audience isnt the youth, it wuld be a heck of a lot of fun to use some of the marketing techniques that you described.
Well this is good info, marketing to youths is very different these days as most of them are getting techie and I do agree to your statment about youths receptible to “if”, I find it very true in today’s marketing.
Yes teens nowadays are more hooked up in browsing the internet and going to social media sites. If you are selling products for teenager lines you should advertise them in sites where they frequent.
Sherman Unkefer
i think teens are hooked on “spamming” soical media nowadays…
Haha at the comment above!
Kids are getting smarter and smarter and they don’t buy something just because it’s shiny, these days. 90’s are gone
Somehow though, the consumer hunger and the actual number of things sold is probably rising anyway.
Marketing through social media or online media is quite different these days and it has a very good response of user base on social media.
Almost every 5th person is present on some social media.
So, marketing through social media has been much more popular and powerful these days.
It also enables youth to make a research on items before making any purchase.