Q&A: Julie Hochheiser, Senior Web Editor at Seventeen Magazine

Earlier this month, Seventeen Magazine and MTV partnered for a virtual launch of the December/January issue of the magazine. The campaign features exclusive access to a beta of MTV's new browser-based virtual world, which MTV declined to talk about further, a virtual party featuring MTV reality star Whitney Port, a microsite for reduced subscriptions, digital content from the magazine, and virtual goods. I spoke with Julie Hochheiser, Senior Web Editor at Seventeen Magazine, shortly after the launch about their plans for virtual worlds.

Virtual Worlds News: So why launch a virtual world promotion now?

Julie Hochheiser: Obviously these kind of virtual worlds have been growing with popularity. We talked to a lot of them, but because of the way life exists in the worlds, it was hard to figure out what the best partnership would be. It may be hard to link out or feature our content. Not all of them were created for media partnerships, and what’s interesting is that new ones, like Hangout, are actually creating entire sections for media.

We talked with vMTV and they had the right audience and a growing audience. They were looking to promote to our audience as well, and we were looking for the best way to work together. The people in these worlds are very involved.They’re spending money. There’s huge business.

So then we created this exclusive virtual issue on Seventeeen.com that’s only available through MTV. Then in vMTV we created virtual handheld items because that’s what people really want.

VWN: Between those and the access to a new vMTV world and virtual goods and the party, it seems like a whole lot went into the promotion. Why do so much?

JH: We wanted to create an experience and see what was best for both brands. The virtual items in the world are great for both brands. We did the issue for brand awareness to let girls know who was on the cover--we have the whole fashion and celebrity theme. We also wanted to drive traffic to the website and test selling subscriptions through the microsite. The fun thing about the promotion that ties it together "buy the virtual buy the real." You can get the virtual issue or the real. Or you can buy the virtual bag as well as the real bag which is a Seventeen exclusive.

VWN: It sounds like you're testing the waters, but also commiting to a fair amount of research and development. Is this an experimental campaign? What are your goals?

JH: It was definitely experimental, mainly because no one has ever done it before and we’re seeing how media brands can work with these virtual worlds. We had multiple goals. We obviously want to drive Web traffic, stand sales, subscriptions. We also wanted to partner with MTV because they’re very important to our readers.

MTV had their own goals. This world of commerce is very important to their business, so they were also creating new items. We threw this in-world event, and it really played to our brand and their platform.  The really great thing for us as a brand is that so many of our girls are all over the country, so they can’t interact with our celebrities or the brand. It was a really fun experience because normally these events are just in the cities like New York or L.A.

VWN: How did the launch party go?

JH: It was great. I don’t have exact numbers. The users came and interacted with the fashion and beauty editors and they could talk to Whitney one on one. Everyone was celebrating the issue.

VWN: I know it's soon into the campaign, but what's your early takeaway?

JH: It’s too early to tell metrics-wise, but I see the success in terms of connecting with the audience that’s important to both of our brands. It's really valuable to interact on such a close level even though it may be virtual. I think we’ll experiment with all kinds of things in the virtual world. There are things for our users who are all over the place.

We found success connecting with our readers and a way to realistically work with the brands. I know a lot of media brands have been testing  how to get into virtual worlds. Some are doing billboards and whole worlds and parties and branded areas, but we’re looking to do something that’s really great for the overall business on both sides.

VWN: So are you investigating other opportunities? Will you do more in virtual worlds?

JH: We’re definitely already looking at other worlds and talking to them.

VWN: The closest other campaign I can think of is CosmoGIRL!'s space in There.com. Did you look at that? What did you learn from it?

JH: We’re looking and asking, "What’s the new innovative model?" Everyone wanted to be in [virtual worlds] when they became popular, so we’re taking lessons from what we see around. Some of these virtual worlds are going to let magazines exist in the virtual world and you can put them out on your coffee table and take it with you. And those are exciting opportunities.

VWN: We've seen virtual worlds really growing in the youth sector. I'll be honest, I didn't realize it was this significant for your audience. Do you see a lot of interest from your readers?  Did that drive the campaign?

JH: Two years ago we did a lot of polling about it and there was some interest. What’s exciting for us is that worlds are now being created and targeted exactly to our audience and they're filling with members. It’s easier to work with a brand like that.

In a more general world, there’s not necessarily that common ground. In an MTV world, we know our readers are interested in MTV and watching the celebrities and the music, and we can find that common ground. For us it was finding that specific, niche ground. It was about knowing we could reach out there and find people who might be interested in Seventeen.

It’s been a really great experience and it’s been really fun, especially in the state of the world to use tools that are existing. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. We thought outside the box to work with existing tools and audiences instead of spending a lot of money to create something brand new. It was very exciting to work with MTV and digitize even more of our content. Our site is 100% original content and some of the content in the virtual magazine is from online and in the magazine. Its been a learning experience.

When we do want to move forward with future projects, I think it’ll be much, much richer. There’s a huge potential to get more advertisers involved and subscriptions involved, though we didn’t this time.

Comments

[Dennis Shiao]

Great interview. I like the idea of virtual world to real world integration.