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Future Enterprise - Virtual Marketing |
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Virtual Worlds in the form of multiplayer internet online games are rapidly becoming the new marketing focus, with enterprises setting up and experimenting with virtual businesses. Worlds such as Entropia Universe and Second Life have real cash market economies. Owners of artifacts buy and sell virtual creations in a virtual marketplace, which can crossover with real markets through the conversion of virtual currencies to real world dollars. In these mixed realities, games are becoming monetized, with financial transactions such as sa les or rewards, being translated into real money.
Second life virtual world players build up capital in the form of virtual goods that can be bought and sold inside or outside the game. Players can also invest in real estate, creating and trading homes in cyberspace- spaces that are designed to allow the players to live out their wishes and fantasies through simulation of virtual environments.
Virtual world Games such as Second Life, allow players yo interact as they might in the real world, but without leaving the comfort of their homes- meeting, chatting, dancing, dating and shopping. Residents in Second Life for example can design and sell goods in exchange for Second Life’s currency, the Linden Dollar, which has an exchange rate of 250 Lindens to US$1. Each player creates an avatar of themselves which is free to inhabit and explore this virtual world; buying and selling virtual goods and services to other Second Life citizens.
Companies such as IBM, Dell, GM and Reuters are now promoting their brands in Second Life. IBM has recently announced a $100 million investment in fostering new business from the Forbidden City in China- a virtual version created in cooperation with the Chinese government. IBM is also hosting meetings in Second Life, while hundreds of IBM staff from across the world were recently hosted at a conference on IBM’s own private island built for the occasion.
a real time "proof-of concept" of the Wimbledon Tennis tournament has also been demonstrated, where action on the centre court was simultaneously replicated using digital animations. Not everyone can afford to go to Wimbledon, but they might be able to share experience online in a virtual world. As well as sport and IT, fashion and music are two industries using a Second Life strategy to showcase their brands.
Sony is showcasing its artists while Adidas and Reebok sell virtual training shoes and American Apparel outfits its model avatars in the latest fashions.
Financial services and advertising agencies are also active, with Reuters setting up a news bureau with its own chief, while visitors watch live news feeds. .
Toyota and Nissan sell virtual cars, while Starwood Hotels test out their new hotels in the virtual world. Major retailers test their merchandising strategies in virtual shopping malls and the BBC has rented an island in the virtual world to stage live music events.
Future Trends
The above examples of marketing and merchandising products and services in a virtual environment demonstrate a clear trendline in the rapid convergence of real and virtual business paradigms.
It seems clear that virtual marketing is evolving in tandem with virtual shopping, marking a symbiosis between the real and virtual worlds. In a remarkably short time humans have accepted this synthesis as a normal part of reality and the the flow of their daily lives.
This trend therefore marks a critical transition period for the next generation enterprise- in which social networks and virtual worlds are rapidly being integrated into both marketing and IT strategies.
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