Shoe maker K-Swiss, lingerie and swimwear retailer Eberjey, music merchandiser Bravado, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum are now peddling their virtual wares in There.com. Each will establish specialty shops to sell branded goods for There.com avatars. UPDATE:Bebe has been announced as joining the retailers to sell virtual goods in There.com. There.com has sold virtual goods as part of brand campaigns before, most recently for NaCo, but has also popular for large, branded environments, such as those for Scion, Coke, and CosmoGIRL!. There.com CEO Michael Wilson calls those successes, but says similar builds elsewhere may be part of the backlash against marketing in virtual worlds.
"CC Metro [for coke] and CosmoGirl Village are fairly large entries into the virtual world," Wilson told Virtual Worlds News. "We believe that one of the reasons there’s a backlash is that people were spending a fortune opening an island and no one was coming. We think of that as opening a K-Swiss store in the real world. You could just find other people to sell it."
The smaller entry through virtual goods, though, can be just as successful. For many brands, it's a tactic that There.com, which helps manage the brand's entry to the virtual world, encourages.
"When people wear the virtual merchandise, you still get brand exposure," said Wilson. "And the lifetime is as long as people own the virtual good. We’ve found brands like that--especially when starting off. We actually encourage that. We want our customers to be successful. For us to come in and sell our customers the moon and then not have them be successful isn’t good for anyone."
While it's easy for K-Swiss to put its clothes and shoes into the virtual world, There.com has made sure that all of its Eberjey items remain PG-13 to fit its environment. The Country Music Hall of Fame will sell thematic merchandise, and Bravado will sell band-related outfits, as it has done in Zwinky and Second Life, beginning with clothes for Iron Maiden, SlipKnot, and Bullet for My Valentine. Wilson says more outfits are on the way as There.com prefers to release items in stages to maintain interest.
Interestingly, several of the new items have been created by There.com users themselves. Unlike similar campaigns in worlds like Second Life, though, this wasn't a contest to spur interest in user-generated content around the band. It's a matter of There.com tapping its user base to keep them involved--and paid.
"In many cases we have users who produce work that is as good as professional animators. We put out an RFP and some of the users produced really great work," said Wilson "They get paid, just like an animator then. We’re a one-stop shop for the brands. They come and we say we’ll get the things made and we take responsibility for finding the best way. Whether we produced it using high-priced animators or robots, they don’t care."
They may not care where the virtual goods are coming form, but there's definitely increasing interest. In a Wall Street Journal article about the launch, K-Swiss VP of Global Marketing Jennifer Weiderman said she would be reducing television marketing and increasing online spending from 5% of her budget last year to 15% this year.
"When you look at an ad, it's pretty quick," said Weiderman. "But when they're in this virtual world, this gets them to spend more time [viewing] your product. It's a little bit more sticky."
There.com has ruined my life. The woman I love and have lived with for almost 10 years joined in January of 2008 and within months she was spending all of her spare time on there. We no longer talk and our relationship is just about done because I wanted her to stop the game. She calls it control but I just want my wife back.. This game is designed to hook females and as the CEO said him self “ I you get the girls, the boys will follow” There is all about the money and they do this by building relationships on line with flirting and coy behavior. They could care less what they do to people’s lives. We had a happy life together before There.com came along.
Posted by: Neil | September 01, 2008 at 05:16 PM
Something tells me you life may not have been as great as you think. Maybe YOUR life was wonderful but your wife has obviously turned to There.com in order to fulfill something missing from hers. I don't know your situation but if you are blaming a 3DVW for marital problems, my guess is you don't think you've done much wrong in your life. I feel for you but you need to make more of an effort.
Posted by: Winston | September 16, 2008 at 08:10 AM