Mining Virtual Worlds for Market Research

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Sulake's internal market-research team and the 15/30 staff audited the data for potentially fraudulent responses, which were removed (about 4.7% of all responses). The remaining 42,409 were then analyzed. Most (8,852) came from Britain, followed by the U.S. (3,747), and Norway (3,244). The fewest responses were from Venezuela (197), Portugal (175), and Austria (90). And responses was split pretty equally between genders: 51% of survey takers were female, 49% male. Most respondents were in the 13- to 15-year-old age group (60%), followed by 16- to 18-year-olds (19%). Only 12% were 12 and under, and 10% were 19 and older.

The survey breaks down the data by nation, and also presents an overall, international portrait of teens today, although the survey is limited by the number of nations with Habbo sites (India, for example, is not represented). The breadth of the data, and the report's clear organization, could help global companies better target teens in certain areas. British teens, for example, prefer rap and hip-hop over other musical genres, Brazilians prefer rock. Japanese kids like pop music the best. So recruiting a hard-rock celebrity to endorse a product to appeal to a British or Japanese audience could flop, whereas it might fly in Brazil.

Some trend watchers think mining virtual worlds for teen-trend data is a logical and timely market-research strategy. "The membrane between our real and our virtual worlds has become very thin, especially for teens today. Most of their social interaction takes place with a screen, whether it's on social-networking sites, instant messaging, using a cell phone to take photos or watch TV, or even just plain e-mailing," observes Robyn Waters, former vice-president of trend, design, and product development at Target and now the head of an eponymous trend-watching firm. "For this generation, interacting in the virtual world isn't just a trend. It's their life," Waters continues. "Trend watching in virtual worlds makes sense for any business in today's environment that wants to be around for the next generation."

Questioning the Reliability of the Data

But other professional trend watchers warn that marketers should remember the demographic that's being represented, specifically, a teen who likes online games and prefers, or is at least comfortable with, having a digital alter ego. Teens who like to be authentic about their personalities and who lean toward uploading photographs to Facebook.com might differ in shopping habits from those who create cartoon-like selves in Habbo, cautions Heidi Dangelmaier, chief executive of 3iYing, a marketing firm that relies on teenage girls to develop marketing strategies for companies such as Virgin Mobile (VM).

"With Facebook and MySpace, it's clear that many teen girls, at least, are interested in reality, rather than in virtual worlds," says Dangelmaier, a former consultant to video game companies such as Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Sega (SGAMY.PK), for which she researched girls' relationships to games. "When surveying what kids want in the real world within an online multiplayer game or virtual world, it's important to ask, exactly who's in there?" she says.

Habbo relies on teens to provide information about themselves, says Teemu Huuhtanen, Sulake's president in charge of global development of Habbo. "We don't ask that much information when they register," he says. This raises questions about the reliability of the survey's data, of course. But the relative anonymity of the survey's responses is not much different from those garnered, say, by an online poll on a popular Web site. Verifying site visitors' true ages and identities is a broader challenge facing all Web sites, whether geared toward online gambling or social networking. Until that's resolved satisfactorily, self-reporting of personal data is all that's readily available.

For any youth marketer or trend specialist, access to 42,000-plus international teen opinions on what online gaming Web sites they frequently visit, what brands they like, or whether they'd rather use a PC for instant messaging than for playing games or purchasing goods can be valuable indeed. To gather such broad data on such a large scale within an online virtual world is certainly an innovative use of the gaming genre. With the second Global Habbo Youth Survey coming up this fall, the data from this year's book will have serve as a valuable baseline for a new type of teen marketing research.

Jana is a writer with BusinessWeek.com in New York.