For those of us with only a fleeting awareness of Second Life or There.com, also known as virtual communities, this book is an eye opener and a warning to all marketers to do the necessary research to understand where virtual worlds came from and where they might be headed. After reading it, I am still not sure I understand it all, but I know that the target audience for the book, marketers and those in branding or studying branding, need to understand virtual worlds and their opportunities as a requirement for modern social and business communication.
With eight chapters, Brand Avatar is a relatively short book, but it ends with a “Virtual world companion guide” (pp. 113‐171) that is worth the price of the book all by itself. It is a researcher's dream, with enough references to provide interested parties with a strong start.
The author starts out with “The emergence and characteristics of virtual worlds” (chapter 1), where she discusses the evolutionary niche that virtual worlds fill “through not only their customization and personalization features, but through their high visual and audio experience on the internet – as if you had actually stepped into them” (p. 3). Certainly, what marketers know as the adoption process is moving very quickly with the appearance of varied and more specialized virtual media.
Chapter 2 “The culture of virtual world users,” discusses the users, their languages, and their culture. Studies apparently show that “experience gained via digital alter egos can change how people behave in real life – at least in the short term” (p. 21). This might mean that stepping into an aged version of yourself causes you to change your lifestyle in some way. There is also the money. “In 2008, the total number of user‐to‐user transactions, a measure of the gross domestic product in Second Life, grew by 14.3 percent to $38 million from Q1 to Q2”. Other statistics about users:
6 percent of US broadband users visit virtual worlds on a weekly basis;
18 percent have tried a virtual world at least once;
Second Life is the number one virtual world visited, followed by virtual worlds for teens and kids; and
regular virtual world's users often visit more than one virtual world (p. 24).
Though most of the growth is from kids, the author states that the Boomer generation is a good target for easier interfaces and relevant activities.
Chapter 3, “The emergence of business within virtual worlds,” moves from users to business involvement, most importantly brand opportunities. “The fact that businesses can put their brand name on to products, games, and experiences in virtual worlds so that real‐life people via avatar can interact with their brand experientially and go beyond a single message, 2D ad is in essence what compels businesses to be there in the first place” (p. 31). Their investment is helped by the fact that “57 percent considered buying a real‐life product as a result of a recommendation they received from someone in Second Life” (p. 33). Readers will be interested in the list of companies that are investing in virtual worlds (Coca‐Cola, IBM, Amazon, etc.).
Chapter 4, “The virtual worlds of proprietary brands,” discusses the branded virtual worlds, much dominated by Disney, Coke, Viacom, and their ilk. The partnerships the big companies have with the sites are continually undergoing changes as the technology and consumer base matures. “Over 80 percent of the MTV Virtual Worlds' community has purchased a branded virtual good and these virtual goods have been used over 5 million times” (p. 62).
Next, the author moves into success stories (chapter 5, “Success stories”) and to some of the problems encountered in this new domain (chapter 6, “Failure stories”). One example of success is “Coke's contest to develop vending machines to be distributed within Second Life” (p. 69). However, according to The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life (Daniel Terdiman), “there aren't any short‐cuts to success for virtual entrepreneurs … ditto for large brands” (p. 78). The other side is that “nine out of ten business forays into virtual worlds fail within 18 month” (p. 81), often because they are dull, behave as they do offline, or confuse “peer to peer” with targeting. The book reminds the reader, however, that the “impact on organizations could be as big as that of the internet” (p. 81) and that “by 2012, 70 percent of businesses/organizations will establish their own exclusive virtual world to be used at the very least for internal corporate purposes” (p. 82).
Now that “Brand Avatars” has moved from inception, to users, to successes and failures, Ms DeMesa discusses “New challenges” (chapter 7). Many of these have to do with technological glitches, the number of people who can be on a site at a given time, and virtual intellectual property. One important example is the IBM virtual world guidelines (pp. 93‐94), which helps employees navigate these new options legally and appropriately.
Summing up the book, in “The futurist's review” (chapter 8), the author answers the question of why? “Because the grand experiments being done in virtual worlds matter to the future of the web” (p. 103). There is an example of a venture capitalist who says that 95 percent of the plans he sees have virtual worlds in them (p. 108).
I learned a lot in this book. Some of her predictions will come true; some will not, as it is with all new technology. Some 20 years ago, video conferencing was predicted to replace onsite meetings, but that has not actualized, due partially to the qualitative benefits of real people in real places. Nonetheless, the lessons that companies can learn include:
Studying virtual worlds can help us learn about real ones.
This application will mature, like the iPod did.
The largest virtual worlds are used and/or created by just a few large companies.
Virtual worlds have real‐world purchases.
Follow users, not technology.
I expect there to be chapters on virtual worlds in future editions of marketing textbooks. Because of the weakness of the dollar against the British pound, the price of this book is a little high. But it does offer reference opportunities for those who need to know where markets are headed in the future.
