A beginner’s guide to virtual advertising

Dismissed by some as a passing fad, designated virtual worlds are now widely recognized as a key transformative technology in the world of advertising. Michael Solomon offers some guidelines to help represent your brand in virtual worlds.

So, you’ve finally decided to join the 21st century and promote your brand on one of the myriad of virtual worlds out there; perhaps Second Life, MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach, There.com, Stardoll, Habbo Hotel, or one of the hundreds of other platforms that millions of people visit (though most of us in Real Life have no clue about their existence). Now, you have to decide on an avatar, or digital spokesperson, to represent your brand.  Should you choose an incredibly buxom Angelina Jolie look-alike?  Brad Pitt with wings?  A slightly better-looking rendition of your CEO?

“In his seminal cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, author Neal Stephenson envisioned a virtual world he called the Metaverse where everyday people take on glamorous identities in a 3D immersive environment.”

Real world advertisers worry a lot about just who they should cast in a print ad or TV advert, but for now it’s anything goes in cyberspace.  Consumer researchers and other social scientists know quite a bit about what makes an effective endorser. The question is, can we extrapolate from 50 years of voluminous research on “source effects,” add the limited work that’s been done specifically on how people behave in computer-mediated environments, and start to lay out some general guidelines for avatar casting calls?

In his seminal cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, author Neal Stephenson envisioned a virtual world he called the Metaverse where everyday people take on glamorous identities in a 3D immersive environment. The book’s main character delivers pizza in RL (real life), but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince and champion sword fighter.  The hugely popular Matrix movie trilogy paints a similar (though more sinister) picture of a world that blurs the lines between physical and digital reality.

“The ability to shape-shift into any form opens a Pandora’s Box for marketers.  As advertising messages steadily migrate to virtual platforms, we need to reboot our assumptions about what spokespeople and models should look like.”

Today these fictional depictions come to life as we witness the tremendous growth of real-time, interactive virtual worlds where visitors assume virtual identities in cyberspace. The Harvard Business Review predicts that within the next five years virtual environments are likely to emerge as the dominant internet interface.  The market analysis company Gartner predicts that by the year 2011, over 250 million people will regularly visit digital environments.  These 3D platforms combine the stunningly vivid graphics of high-end videogames with the real-time interaction ability of chatrooms. In addition to corporate websites, companies will operate virtual stores where customers browse at their leisure and interact with digital salesclerks.

Virtual world marketing is at the nexus of several important marketplace trends:

• A renewed focus by retailers to improve the shopping experience in order to attract new customers and sell more to existing customers.
• The boom in “consumer-generated content” that encourages end users to participate in the design of products and promotional messages (e.g. numerous companies ranging from Frito-Lay to Swarovski crystal sponsor online platforms where customers submit ideas for ads or product modifications).
• The introduction of startup companies that hope to offer simulated shopping environments on behalf of real merchants (e.g. Kinset.com).and the steady growth of the virtual worlds industry.
• The explosive growth of the videogame industry (with revenues that today eclipse the movie business) as the user base expands beyond its original core of young males to include a large number of women and older people.

Some naysayers dismiss 3D platforms (especially Second Life) as a passing fad, but I believe their myopia is misplaced (perhaps they also wrote off the World Wide Web during the dot com bust).  Indeed Gartner recently designated virtual worlds as a key transformative technology that will garner mainstream acceptance over the next five years.

“You don’t need to be a social scientist to know, for example, that while beauty is only “skin deep,” attractive people generally are more persuasive brand advocates.”

On these sites people assume visual identities or avatars that range from realistic versions of themselves to tricked-out versions with “exaggerated” physical characteristics, or from winged dragons to superheroes. How will our understanding of source effects apply to advertising contexts where a company spokesperson whose avatar is a fiery dragon, a sultry siren, or both at once?  Welcome to the wild and wacky world of advertising in virtual worlds.

The ability to shape-shift into any form opens a Pandora’s Box for marketers.  As advertising messages steadily migrate to virtual platforms, we need to reboot our assumptions about what spokespeople and models should look like.  In RL, after all, creative directors obsess over the precise appearance of a spokesperson – whether a celebrity, fashion model or “man-on-the street” because they understand the potency of source effects:  Often ‘who’ says it is just as important as ‘what’ is said.  Indeed a vast body of academic research that dates back at least 50 years attests to the importance of this communications variable. When you boil down this work, one fundamental finding turns up again and again:  Receivers interpret the meaning of an identical message quite differently depending upon their evaluation of the messenger.

You don’t need to be a social scientist to know, for example, that while beauty is only “skin deep,” attractive people generally are more persuasive brand advocates.  All things equal, a hottie trumps an ugly duckling every time. Identification with the source also influences how persuasive he or she will be. The more in common the receiver has with the source the more likely we’ll observe a desire to follow the source’s recommendations.

Advertisers have employed spokescharacters (whether humans, drawings or animations) since the late 1800’s. Traditionally, they turned up to sell low involvement products such as food items (e.g. the Pillsbury Doughboy) and cleaning supplies (e.g. Mr. Clean) but today advertisers employ them to pitch high-involvement purchases such as insurance as well (e.g. The ubiquitous GEICO Gecko). The effectiveness of these characters is well-documented; many researchers believe they improve brand recognition and they also help to forge a distinctive brand personality.

The Disney Corporation in particular exhibits an uncanny knack for creating animated personas that are physically attractive and even (dare we say it?) sexy. Its cast of comely characters includes Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), Jane (Tarzan), Jasmine (Aladdin) and Ariel (The Little Mermaid). As animation technology has advanced characters have become more human in appearance to the extent that today it is sometimes difficult to determine if the character we view is real or fake.  Some of these animated characters are arguably more beautiful than real models (who essentially aren’t “real” themselves due to post-production technologies such as airbrushing). For instance, a computer-generated character named Aki Ross from the movie Final Fantasy edged out dozens of real life models for the coveted position of cover girl in Maxim’s ”Hot 100” supplement. In some cases these fantasy characters bleed over to the real world – witness the growing cosplay movement that originated (where else?) in Japan.  Thousands of people worldwide dress as their avatars or anime characters and congregate in specialized cafes or at international conventions.

Can we apply what we know in these contexts to create effective virtual advertising?  The small number of researchers (such as Natalie Wood who works with me at Saint Joseph’s University, Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford and Nick Yee at the Palo Alto Research Center) who delve into online source effects do find evidence that the avatar forms we take and those with whom we interact in virtual worlds influence our experiences and even our feelings about our RL selves. For example, experimental subjects who are assigned an attractive avatar are friendlier to virtual strangers than those who take the form of an unattractive avatar. Taller avatars are more confident and aggressive in virtual world negotiations than are shorter avatars. Male avatars stand farther apart from one another when they have a conversation, just as they do in RL.

“And, evidence indicates that somewhat paradoxically marketers should not strive to create an avatar that is so realistic at first blush it looks like a real person.  When a character appears truly human, this raises expectations that it will precisely mimic a real person’s behaviors – anything short of total verisimilitude results in disappointment when observers dismiss the character as a cheap imitation.”

What guidance can we provide to advertisers when they design spokesavatars? To generalize from the preliminary research we’ve performed to date, here are a few issues we can address:

Functionality: Is the avatar going to merely be a prop to display a product like a model in a traditional print ad, or will it be proactive and interact with consumers as would a sales or customer service representative?  While motionless avatars may be acceptable in displays and static advertisements (such as billboards) they may not go over well when customers need to request information about product specifications and availability. Research to date supports this notion; dynamic avatars appear to boost the feeling of “presence” and heighten users’ involvement in the virtual context. And, we find that in customer service interactions it is advisable to let residents choose their own avatar from a preselected group to further boost identification.

Realism: Should the avatar appear realistic (e.g. Aki Ross in Final Fantasy), more like a character (e.g. Betty Boop) or somewhere in between (e.g. Princess Fiona in Shrek). We found that when respondents shop for appearance-related products (apparel and accessories) they prefer to interact with avatars that depict photographic images of everyday people and celebrities rather than idealized animations.

The advertiser should also consider if the brand already has a strong personality in the real world as opposed to a relatively undefined image. If so the available evidence suggests that the avatar should mimic this personality to the extent possible.  In our work to date on what we call the brand match-up hypothesis, we find support for the notion that the personality characteristics we infer to an avatar (sexy, sophisticated, cute, etc.) should correspond to the traits we infer about a product – and don’t doubt that consumers do impute human qualities to almost every brand they encounter.

And, evidence indicates that somewhat paradoxically marketers should not strive to create an avatar that is so realistic at first blush it looks like a real person.  When a character appears truly human, this raises expectations that it will precisely mimic a real person’s behaviors – anything short of total verisimilitude results in disappointment when observers dismiss the character as a cheap imitation.

Anthropomorphism: Should the avatar resemble a human form or something else like the “furries” that abound in Second Life?  Advertisers need to consider the probability that consumers will be able to identify with, and respond favorably to the fantasy figure. The decision also depends on the specific virtual world you wish to enter.  Non- human avatars are extremely popular and common in worlds such as Second Life, but they’re nonexistent in others such as There.com and Gaia Online. And, we find evidence that same-sex avatars are more persuasive; depending on the advertised product and the target audience we recommend an avatar that’s clearly male or female rather than one who is androgynous

Clearly we’re in early days when it comes to creating virtual spokespeople – but it’s clear that this will be the next frontier for the model industry.  Already Ford Models partnered with MTV to sponsor a virtual model contest, and celebrity avatars pop up in 3D environments like Stardoll.  As 3D environments continue to penetrate mainstream culture, advertisers need to take a page from the real world when they craft a virtual communications strategy:  Consider the source.

Michael Solomon is a Professor of Consumer Behaviour at Manchester Business School

Image provided courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley/1072579