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.
