Quick Stat: Sears' Success in Virtual Worlds

Sears launched an ambitious back-to-school campaign last month across seven different youth virtual worlds and avatar sites. It's a shotgun approach that seems to be working out well. Sears CMO Richard Gerstein told me earlier this month that "Within the first few days of launch, there were more than 500,000 visits to the Sears virtual store on Zwinky.com, with over a third of visitors “purchasing” apparel and dorm room items with points."

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal article on apparel marketing in virtual worlds reports that the Zwinky boutiques "logged 750,000 visitors and sold 850,000 virtual items during their first 16 days through mid-August." Meez CEO Sean Ryan followed up on his personal blog that 700,000 Sears items have been adopted so far by his users.   There's likely some overlap in users, but that's over 1.5 million branded items distributed in just two of the properties. The campaign will run through the end of the month

It's worth noting that all the worlds involved are browser-based, light-weight environments. That's a trend Ryan thinks will continue.

"What is still surprising to me is why brands continue to go into the downloadable 3D worlds, which have a much smaller number of users and a less brand-friendly audience (think of your brand being attacked by gun-toting terrorists like happened to American Apparel (AMEX: APP) than mainstream worlds like Meez and Gaia Online," he blogged. "The brand focus is already shifting to big, mass market virtual worlds where millions of monthly users replicate their real world experiences, interact with each other, and search for brands to adopt to identify themselves to their old friends and new-found ones as well.  The good news is that the forward-thinking apparel and shoe brands are starting to discover the category right now."

Of course, the Sears article also featured three new fashion retailers selling virtual goods in There.com, so there's plenty of life in downloadable worlds yet. In fact, it seems to me like it might be more a question, as usual, of demographics. A back-to-school campaign would need to target the under-18 market. There.com certainly includes that, but, at least last summer, that was just under 1/3 of the population with the average user at 22 years old.

For younger users, though, it definitely seems like Sears  is finding the answer (and audience) in browser-based world. With the rest of the month left to go and a few more properties out there, I'll update as I see new numbers.

Comments

[Thoria]

Meez and Gaia Online are mainstream? For what definition of mainstream?

I would argue, rather, that their primary audiences are much more brand-conscious (brand-dependant?) and predictable than those of the "downloadable 3d worlds". Which is why they're probably the perfect targets for Sears.

[Tom Cesarz]

Could Mr Gerstein clarify this statement:

"with over a third of visitors “purchasing” apparel and dorm room items with points."

Was if physical apparel that was purchased online, or was it virtual apparel and other items for use in the virtual website?
Thank you for your time.

[Joey Seiler]

In the context of the conversation, I'm 99% sure he's talking about virtual goods.