Are kids ready for ads in virtual worlds?
But that begs the question: are kids ready for such a grown-up reality online?
Some of those communities boasted of successful experiments with marketing.
“This kind of marketing is designed to operate at a subconscious level.
“This is a very powerful medium for marketing because it involves this huge engagement.
It’s more powerful than a sugar cereal commercial.”
Product companies creating branded content to appeal to kids is as old as the first days of television.
“This is a very powerful medium for marketing because it involves this huge engagement.
He added: “Therefore there need to be standards.”
COPPA doesn’t deal directly with advertising.
Virtual worldstargeted at children are a relatively new market, but one that’s growing quickly.
Ad spending is also expected to mushroom.
Though still a relatively small amount, it excludes marketers spending on their own virtual worlds, likeBarbieGirls.com.
Club Penguin, a subscription site with no ads, is one of the top-ranked kids' virtual worlds.
Disney bought Club Penguin for $350 million in August.
It also does not sell product placements, according to Root.
But Whyville’s Bowers said at the conference that kids are more sophisticated about marketing than people suspect.
“You just need to do it in a different way,” Bowers said.
Still, Montgomery said there need to be rules of fairness around marketing to kids online.
For example, advertising needs to be labeled as advertising, she said.
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