Interview: Coke Studios Moves Over to There

Coca Cola's private virtual world, Coke Studios, will no longer live on its own Now users will go into There.com to find CC Metro. "It's kind of the best of both worlds," Coca Cola Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing Michael Donnelly told VirtualWorldsNews.com. "It is CC Metro, so for all intents and purposes, people coming over from Coke Studios are going to have that walled garden approach--but with an open gate. We're playing all our bases."

Coke Studios, which has been around for a was recently held up as an example of the types of successful niche worlds that Exponential predicted would take over in 2008. It was light weight, completely controlled, and successful. But Donnelly isn't worried.

"We've got virtual environments throughout many sites around the world," he explained. "We think there's a place for each one of these things.   At the end of the day, Coke is all about the "Coke Side of Life" experience and being where our customers are. Each of these has very different target audiences. And we want to be where all of them are."

Closed Worlds and Open Gates

Likewise, There.com is excited not only to provide some of that audience, but also to take Coke's audience and bring it in to the rest of the world--and the rest of There's advertisers.

"It really excites us,"  said Ben Richardson, Director of Business Development for Makena Technologies/There.com. "It opens up our branding opportunities to lots of new users and exposes us to new users."

Both companies are looking at the opportunity for closed worlds with open gates to mingle advertisers and branding opportunities while still maintaining a controlled space.

"In 2008, I think you'll see not only in There.com but in other worlds this continuation of cross-pollination," explained Richardson.

In a more specific vein, Coca Cola confirmed that plans are already in the works to execute next year.

"A little twist to that is that it gives us a lot of opportunities to leverage our existing partners outside of virtual environments to bring them in, like the Olympics or Nascar," said Donnelly. "There's nothing we can talk about yet, but it's definitely a strong idea."

Neither company would disclose financial considerations for working with other advertisers.

Inside CC Metro

Users will still access CC Metro initially through MyCoke.com, but then almost everything will change. The biggest  change for users will be the jump from Habbo Hotel-esque isometric views (Coke Studios was originally designed by Sulake) to the fully 3D, more graphically immersive world of There.com.

"We've gotten some feedback from users, but it's just coming along with the times," said Donnelly of why it was time for a move. "We all know that the past year or two has been an incredible transformation for the virtual worlds space. We've had lots of little upgrades, but it was time for something big. There has great graphics and great usability. At the end of the day, we're talking about teens, and so moving around is important to be done easily. But it's also just chemistry. There.com has been a terrific partner. It's far better than going into some big environment and just being a media play."

That addition of graphical intensity presents a higher hardware requirement, but it's one that There is aware of, and, it says, one that adapts to an older demographic. While Coke Studios has seen a focus mainly on teens and young adults from 13 and 34, There.com sees a fairly evenly distributed mix between 13 and 50+.

"We see the youth market, the tween and sub-tween market thriving in browser-based worlds because they are sufficient to keep that type of user engaged as long as you build in compulsion loops to that experience," said Richardson. "But as you move up the spectrum to an older user, people have more requirements. They want more kinetic activities, to hop in a car and drive across the world or play cards or play  paint ball and use voice or more sophisticated networking technology. That's something we've been doing from day one to provide the most sophisticated, but lowest barrier to entry experience."

There.com will bring hoverboards and 3D dancing, but  Coke tried to keep the main concepts of Coke Studios when bringing the world over, so the experience should remain somewhat familiar. Coke Studios was a part of the MyCoke customer loyalty plan, offering online points for codes found under bottle caps and on boxes. Now those points can be used as currency within CC Metro to buy coke products. In a twist, though, users can also use ThereBucks for their virtual thirst items.

Making the Switch

Donnelly says that the potential for a rough transition has been one of its primary concerns. Extensive messaging has already been put into place to warn users of a switch and research conducted to look into Coke Studio and There.com community behavior. With Coke's rather extensive experience in virtual worlds--possibly rivaled only by Scion as a large brand working across multiple platforms--Donnelly says the company is ready.

"I was fortunate enough to be the lead on Virtual Thirst, and if I tie the experience in that to all my others, we have lots of learning," he explained. "The top line is to become immersed in the community, not just a marketer observing it. We're getting advice and counsel and even permission from all these communities. We look at other marketers and they've gone out and bought islands and built things, and now they're not there. We didn't do that. We distributed things throughout the environment. The only other thing I'd add on the community piece is that I wouldn't say we've got it all figured out. We're treading lightly. I went to the SLCC, and I found myself the only recognizable brand there."

Richardson adds that providing a branded space might actually be easier in a public world. Instead of simply one omnipresent message, users get a familiar sense of display.

"By bringing in Coke and working with other advertisers and the diversity of consumers these brands attract, you get a net of consumers that's a lot like what you get in real life," he explained. "It's an invitation to participate."

Maintaining the Brand

One big advantage both companies cite for the entrance into There is the moderated environment. With There.com's constant supervision and approval process for user-created content to meet PG13 and IP guidelines, the public virtual world looks a lot more like a privately branded space than the less regulated Second Life.

Coke has had a fairly large success  in working in virtual worlds and Web 2.0 environments, though, at least in part because it's been free with its brand. There.com will provide some regulation, though.

"We've had great success with this in other areas," he explained. " In this particular area, we're not overly concerned with protecting our brand as protecting our customers. One of the biggest things about going with Makena, is that they're very protective there. You've seen what we think about giving the brand back to the people, and there's a time and place for that with different demographics. That won't happen here."

But the open brand won't entirely be going away.

"We'll give people our Coca Assets and allow them to rearrange those because they're all approved assets, concluded Donnelly. "We like to give Coca Cola as a platform for people to be seen and heard. That's a big piece of what Coca Cola does. We've got passion areas where our users are—with music or sports—and we want to be there."

Comments

[Anton]

Well I am and was a player at cokestudios.
I played cokestudios since it opened for the first time a long, long time ago. The transition in my opinion was in the WRONG direction. Cokestudios and Habbo where the only 2 online games which had a really great and UNIQE gameplay going. Now there is only habbo. Many people hate habbo and preffered to play cokestudios all because cokestudios had the BEST graphics. It was beautifull gaming environment. Habbo looks very bad.

There has MANY MANY MANY problems with it which make long term gameplay impossible for me.
I will not describe all the problems here.

If you want to see real comments of real mycoke players about the mycoke to There transition and the problems we think There has, please see this topic:
http://cokeelite.info/showthread.php?t=1022

Since mycoke doesn't have its own forum we have our own..

[Dani]

I dislike the new CC Metro. I especially dislike the "paying" part of it. Coke studios was free and all money was earn not bought with real money. Unfortunately this is the end of my virtual coke experience.

[kyle]

i think takeing coke studios of the web was a horible idea i was a big fan and to change it with a diffrent game people have spent lots of time engouing them self on that game is there is a diffrent link to it can u send it to my email kylecutone123@hotmail.com thank you

[Wade]

I feel that Coke messed up on this whole CC Metro B.S. and I'm not going to sit here and take it. I want the original Coke Studios to return and I know there is alot of people out there who want the same thing. That's why I've started my site www.bringcokestudiosback.tk and I'm keeping this site up and leaving the petition open until we get Coca Cola to realize There huge mistake with gaming. Please give it a visit and sign our petition. We can do this.

[Mr. J]

I think the transformation was the worse thing that could ever happen to coke studios. Coke studios was the best online "free" game to play. Now theres only habbo, which is too expensive and takes the fun away from having rares and seeing the legacy that the game had to offer with those of us who have been playing since the beginning. I can understand the companys worry about hacking and making fake furni and what not, but guess what, THAT WAS COKE LIFE!!! So you might have lost your furni, or got hacked for your furni or tried to make a fake, THATS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REAL WORLD, you get hacked, tricked and robbed and you get on your feet and try again. I believed that this was the best form of advertisement for the Coca-Cola company. If you ask me, their competitors Pepsi did have an upper hand with reaching the youth, Cokestudios was Cokes way of telling generation X that they didnt just cater to middle age America. When Cokestudios was up and running, it made you want to buy a coke! You wanted to be the richest on the game, so you bought that sugary sweet concauction and drank it. Now I will just pass up the soda for another because theres no need to get the codes. Its a sad thing because gamers everywhere IDOLIZED that playing field. Now, being a computer technoloy major at BSU, I think I will jus take that idea and make money off it. Coke studios was fine the way that it was and if Coca Cola wanted to expand their audience for their avatars then they should have RESPECTED THEIR CONSUMERS and left Cokestudios like it was and added the new application on THERE. But hey, I guess they did what they thought was best, there company will just suffer at the almighty dollar, as Pepsi puts on another Pepsimusica or Pepsismash or whatever and uses T Pain or Rihainna to grab young Americas attention and loyalty, (or make their own PEPSISTUDIOS). Then the only thing Coca Cola will be good for is that old sucky Christmas commercial with that tired Samta Claus on the back of an old skool train. So, Congratulations Coke!! Job will done, now Im off to drink my Pepsi.

[brittney]

Well I am and was a player at coke studios.
I played coke studios since it opened for the first time a long, long time ago. The transition in my opinion was in the WRONG direction. Coke studios and Habbo where the only 2 online games which had a really great and UNIQUE game play going. Now there is only habbo. Many people hate habbo and proffered to play coke studios all because coke studios had the BEST graphics. It was beautiful gaming environment. Habbo looks very bad.

There has MANY MANY MANY problems with it which make long term game play impossible for me.
I will not describe all the problems here.

[Steve]

Dont worry there will be new retros of cokestudios.

www.OurCoke.co.nr

and

www.KingStudios.com

[Joey]

Listen, everyone hates CCMetro, and we wan Cokestudios back. It's that simple. Just give it back to us!

BRING COKESTUDIOS BACK!

[Jeff]

Just here to say I have to agree with the above comments! CC metro was a turn for the worst. Coke Studios was one of the best games i have ever seen. it was the only game where my younger sister, older brother and i could all play and have fun. CC metro isn't even fun. I think coke was losing money from hosting it and decided to just get rid of it and call it CC metro because there.com, which it what CC metro is actually called, has been around a lot longer than just 2008. Coke don't you realize you don't have any support from players by making the switch the CC metro? Bring back the beloved Coke Studios, it was awsome!

[Wisdom]

The new coke SUCKS!!!!!!!!!! what the hell!!