• by Tameka Kee , October 4, 2007

Marketer buzz around such adult-facing virtual worlds as Second Life has cooled, but brands like Virgin Records, Penguin Books and even the University of Texas Health Science Center have found success reaching tweens in Numedeon's Whyville.

The Pasadena-based virtual world--with a reported 2.4 million active users ages 8-15 (about 70% of whom are registered members)--allows kids to chat, play games and earn virtual currency called "clams"--and spend those clams on furniture for their virtual houses and accessories for their avatars, among other things.

Members earn clams by taking part in games and activities that have a distinctly educational bent, as the site was conceived in part as an interactive way to keep middle school-age kids interested in math and science.

That's partly why Whyville's marketing strategy is called "active brain advertising," as according to Jay Goss, Whyville's COO, the company isn't just focused on garnering impressions or eyeballs for brands. "We care about eyeballs connected to brains," said Goss.

Working on the premise that advertising and education both have "teaching people about things" as their goal, the company creates branded scenarios for kids to learn in--like the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio-sponsored "WhyEat" program.

Kids who joined the program found that their avatars reflected the nutritional value of the food they ate over time. So avatars that didn't get enough Vitamin C, for example, ended up with the pockmarked face of scurvy, but they could "cure" their avatars of the disease in a few days by adjusting their diet appropriately.

Goss noted that some 45% of WhyEat participants said the program "changed the way they thought about nutrition choices in their real lives," according to post-program tests.

Meanwhile, when Virgin Records hosted a virtual concert for pop star Stacie Orrico on Whyville Island, kids spent more than 100,000 clams on branded memorabilia like shirts and hats that they wore to the event.

For Penguin Books' kid-friendly adaptation of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," Whyville created an entire Global Warming program--complete with in-world climate changes and tropical storms. Kids were able to band together for community clean-up activities after a storm trashed the Whyville beach, and take CO2 and temperature readings of the island at the Penguin-sponsored Climate Center. Almost 400,000 members visited the Climate Center within months of its launch at the end of June.

According to Goss, it's stats like these that reveal the true value of branded promotions in Whyville, although the company can provide standard interactive metrics like impressions and clicks.

"At the end of each month we supplied Penguin with a bunch of data related to the Climate Center," said Goss. "Not just how many kids visited, but things like how many of them experienced the tropical storm, helped clean up the beach, or used the time machine." Goss added that some kids even chose to write articles in The Whyville Times about global warming.

"When we work with a cell phone company like Kajeet, or The Getty Museum, or NASA, we don't just deliver a page view or a 6-second impression on a kid," said Goss. "It's an outcome where a Whyville member does something productive or has a positive experience as a result of interacting with the advertiser."

The sponsorship team at Whyville surveys kids about their attitudes and opinions before a campaign runs and then three, six, or even twelve months after. "It can be educational with a capital 'E,'" said Goss. "Or as specific as whether they have the intention to buy 'The Little Mermaid' on DVD."