Brand Consulting. Coaching. Speaking. Writing.

We're in the process of site and blog renovation and all will soon be consolidated to one address: www.demesabrands.com In the interim, you can reach Alycia at alyciademesa@gmail.com or at 480.205.5911.

Brand Avatar - Translating Virtual World Branding Into Real Wold Success

Ever so often a new set of technologies come along to disrupt the flow of how people, play, work and interact in general. Without fail, those who want to capitalize on these new phenoms dive in with little hesitation while the the rest realize, hmmm... we have to do this, too. But where in the world do we start?

Brand Avatar, Translating Virtual World Branding Into Real World Success is my second book on branding this time focusing on the phenomena of virtual worlds, their historical context, which major brands made some great and not so great decisions in virtual worlds, and ultimately why vw's matter. It's a great source for business people wanting to better understand the overall picture of virtual worlds and what it means for brands in one quick read.

Why do vw's matter? Truly it's not because any one virtual world is the Facebook of today or even tomorrow but rather there is much that can be learned from these worlds ranging from the pre-school set to boomers looking for extended learning. The 2- and 3-D, interactive, customizable interfaces that many worlds present is the face of the Internet's future evolution. Virtual worlds combined with virtual gaming, social media as it exists (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, blogs, etc, etc), and what are now considered traditional Internet sites and email campaigns are in sum what creates the contemporary landscape of VIRTUAL BRANDING.

Now more than ever, brands need to understand consumer habits within the full landscape of the Internet. Where consumer media habits have been chased by advertisers for decades, the new relevancy is consumer virtual habits. This is where our proprietary research services come in. V-Brand 360 is the means to find out a company, product or service's target audience habits within the virtual landscape and then to derive the best, most relevant brand strategy to harness the clear opportunities within virtual branding.

In my next post, I'll introduce more of V-Brand 360 and my colleagues behind it.

GlobalShop 2009 & Virtual Branding Trends

I have to say, today was a fun day in more ways than one. My new book Brand Avatar, Translating Virtual World Branding Into Real World Success just launched in Feb in the UK and is due out in the US and the rest of the world on Mar 31.

This morning I gave a key-note presentation in Las Vegas to attendees of GlobalShop 2009 (produced by Nielsen Business Media) about the brands within virtual worlds and how vw's also fit into the overall social media and traditional Internet landscape for retail brands - or what I collectively refer to as virtual branding.

Where Internet branding used to mean more or less traditional web sites and ecommerce, virtual branding is the landscape of branding within traditional Internet/e-commerce sites, blogging, social media and virtual worlds. For brands large and small alike, harnessing this brave virtual realm can be challenging, but one of the key points to remember is that whether we're talking Facebook, Twitter or Second Life - none are isolated entities but rather work together in the bigger picture of things. Each of these realms: social media, virtual worlds, Internet sites/e-commerce, even email campaigns require more focus by companies as a collective plan - spokes in the wheel that feed the center of brand building - versus regarded as individual components that exist on their own and in isolation. With the convergence and evolution of these realms becoming more mainstream, knowing your target audience's virtual habits are just as important as knowing your target audience's (traditional) media habits. It's a larger topic I'll cover more in future posts.

But back today. I had the luxury of walking around the exhibitor displays today for GlobalShop and saw a vast array of retail products, displays, shelving - you name it. What caught my eye, however, were two different companies offering a new twist on the branded experience. iDisplay is one company based out of the UK that offers up branded and sometimes larger than life digital displays that can run everything from a product demo (as is the case of the uber-sized Samsung phone with fully functioning, interactive display of phone features) to specially-produced commericals and trailers.

Aside from the giant Samsung fun and other over-sized screens mimicing hand-held products, another innovative product iDisplay offers is a branded product display that incorporates these same digital screens and also has a video camera to capture who walks up and a built-in sensor to detect gender: male triggers male-oriented content, female triggers female-oriented. (Because you know, men are from Mars and yada yada...)


Finally, Fogscreen out of Finland has the projected image experience amped up a hundred fold by projecting images onto finally misted fog (i.e., water) in place of the traditional screen, creating a sci fi-inspired misty effect that is both vivid and etheric. The photo below captures a Fogscreen used for a Playboy event.


Thanks again to DDI retail design magazine and the folks at Nielsen Business Media for a great event.