brandsizzle

Is 'Reverse Product Placement An Effective Strategy for Launching New Brands?

While embedding real products in video games has become increasingly common, is there an opportunity to launch virtual brands in environments such as video games, MMOGs and virtual worlds and then translate the brand to a commercial product in the 'real' world?

Former MIT academic and current Xbox Live Arcade product planner David Edery thinks so. He wrote a 2006 article for the Harvard Business Review, suggesting that "reverse product placement,"the commercial translation of fictional brands or products from games into the real world could make sense. Edery argues, "Why spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars fighting mature competitors for mindshare and shelf space in the physical world when you can launch a new offering in an uncluttered fictional one?" Source: Gamasutra.com

He notes that it happens with other media, such as "Every Flavor Beans," from Harry Potter books and movies that was converted into a real-world product by Cap Candy, a division of Hasbro.

“The Simpsons Movie” was promoted by selling real products under imaginary brand names like Buzz Cola, Frosted Krusty-O’s and so on, and certain 7-Eleven locations were temporarily re-branded as outposts of the show’s Kwik-E-Mart chain.

And LastExittoNowhere.com specializes in creating t-shirts with movie-created logos such as The Tyrell Corporation, the high tech biocorp and producers of human-like androids known as replicants in the futuristic thriller, "The Blade Runner."

Reverse product placement is an interesting idea with distinct possibilities for marketers whose target audience is consistent with video game, MMOGs and virtual world fans.

Source: Rob Walker - "False Endorsement", 11/17/07 - New York Times

Trends: Getting One Step Closer to Brains In Jars

You've seen those horror movies where a mad scientist harvests human brains keeps them alive in big jars filled with saline and hooked up to all sorts of wires and electrodes so that they retain their mental faculties? Hold that thought.

MyCberTwin allows you to quickly create compelling virtual personalities called CyberTwins that interact with "friends, family, colleagues or customers" on your behalf---without you being there. According to the MyCyberTwin web site you can " give your CyberTwin some ideas of things you want it to chat about. If you feed your CyberTwin content from your own IM conversations, email or blog.

It will actually learn to talk and be just like you! It will be your digital personality and represent YOU online.
Your CyberTwin lives online at MyCyberTwin.com and has a home address. For example, if you created a CyberTwin named 'Fred', its home address would be http://www.mycybertwin.com/fred and you can issue this to people so they can chat to it via an ordinary web browser."

I am interested in the site's suggestion that you can use the avatar to run a survey, answer FAQs, etc., so I'll probably give it a try. But the idea of having an avatar that can function without me, well, maybe now you can understand the reference to brains in jars.

Source: MyCyberTwin - Let Your Personality Shine Online via Fast Company blog.

Online Trends: Internet Based Collaboration Changing the Way We Do Business

The jury is still out on the success of amillionpenguins.com, the "wikinovel experiment where anyone can write and anyone can edit a novel-in-progress." Three weeks ago we took a look at the emerging e-tome which teetered between really bad and really bizarre. Surely one conclusion of the experiment will be that not everything that can be a wiki should be a wiki.

But online collaboration will only continue to increase, say the authors of newly released book, "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything," in KnowledgeatWharton.com. One of the findings from their research is that 65% of the new (mostly born before 1980) generation of online customers "expects a two way relationship with the brands they select, with the ability to provide feedback and direct input." The expectations of these Internet users is paired with the technological advances of Web 2.0 results, the authors say, in a 'perfect storm' that will change the way companies do business. Examples include marketocracy, com, where virtual stock portfolios guide a real world mutual fund, 'global plant floors,' 'ideagoras,' and virtual worlds such as Second Life.

Marketers are learning to solicit feedback and input from customers via blogs, forums, video platforms, etc. They must also learn to identify relevant collaborative platforms and define the role of these platforms in their marketing mix.

Trends: Second Life et al ---The Future of the Internet?

On my first day at Second Life, I learned how to fly---but only in one direction. That's why the 'photo' here presents an unflattering view of my avatar-self from the rear. Just as well---I haven't had time to buy new hair yet so my current hairstyle, the default for female newcomers to SL, is little more than a giant puff of hair on each side of my head. It's only my avatar-self after all, but it's still embarrassing.

Okay, so it's a small sacrifice to get a look at what some believe is the future of the web: 3-D Internet. Marketing within virtual worlds such as SecondLife, There.com, Worlds of WarWorld of Warcraft, etc., is one of the most talked about 'trends' right now.

But the portrayal of virtual marketing as a hot new trend is as much of an illusion as the virtual real estate that's changing hands in Second Life at out-of-the-world prices. While Dell, Starwood Hotels and Adidas, as well as Reuters and CNET, and even the CDC, have opened outposts in SecondLife, BusinessWeek points out that "amid the hype surrounding Second Life and its growing popularity, it's easy to overlook other three-dimensional online worlds — many with “populations” dwarfing that of Second Life and potentially signifying larger audiences for brands." Worlds.com, a shining star whose light was dimmed by the dot com bust, built 3D virtual worlds for Aerosmith, IBM, Visa, and Coca-Cola in the 1990's.

BTW, Google Earth, provides users with a free version of Sketchup, a 3-D modeling program used to build 3-D structures on top of Google Earth. You can add your own domicile, and tag it to make it geographic specific, or add it to the 3-D warehouse where you can use other developers' creations, such as a model of the White House, the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, for free. Can Googleville be far behind?

Illustrations: Statue of Liberty from 3-D Warehouse, avatar at Wells Fargo ATM - ActiveWorlds from BusinessWeek

Trends: Your Avatar Is Calling

Sometime in the not-too-distant future you may find yourself strategizing a campaign where your target audience consists of avatars living in a three dimensional virtual world. According to Paul Kemp, author Avatar-Based Marketing, "Advertising has always targeted a powerful consumer alter ego: that hip, attractive, incredibly popular person just waiting to emerge (with the help of the advertised product) from an all-too-normal self." According to Kemp, the online personae of consumers, represent a huge population of “shadow consumers who can be analyzed, segmented, and targeted.”

SecondLife.com, is the best known, three-dimensional virtual world, where, once you download the free software, you can participate in a variety of real world-like activities, such as socializing, shopping, etc. Founded in 2000, SL counts over 1.3 members. Harvard Law School is holding its first class in SecondLife. "Law in the Court of Public Opinion" is open to anyone, not just Harvard law students. There are also a growing number of organizations, from Starwood Hotels, to the Centers for Disease Control, who have established outposts in SecondLife.

Recently CNNMoney proclaimed SecondLife “the Internet of the Future.” It is, indeed.

Illustrations from SecondLife website