My So-Called Virtual Life

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• Know what teens are doing there. What teens are doing in these virtual reality environments isn't so different from what they do offline. They mostly hang out and chat with each other—the difference is you may be chatting with someone who looks like a flying Jedi Knight in Teen Second Life or a teen fashionista in MTV's virtual Laguna Beach. They are also entrepreneurial. Just as the adult Second Life economy has been booming, it's common for teens to sell their own fashions or hairstyles (a good "emo" style, for instance, will fetch you a pretty penny). They buy up land or open their own nightclubs and charge admission.

• Do not disrupt. This is the golden rule of any type of in-game advertising (or most types of interactive marketing). Marketing in-game and in virtual reality environments has to be contextual and add value. Toyota's (TM) Scion didn't put billboards inside of the tween virtual reality environment Whyville; it let kids buy and customize virtual Scions and taught them what happens when they miss a virtual payment. Wilson said There.com had positive experiences with Nike (NKE) and Levi's in-world and that their branded virtual goods continue to fetch a premium price on the virtual "used" market.

• Extend an existing brand. MTV recently launched virtual Laguna Beach, an online virtual reality environment (designed by There.com) that mirrors the town and happenings portrayed in the popular reality series. MTV is "working hand-in-hand with a number of marketers, including Pepsi (PEP), to help bring their brands to life within Virtual Laguna Beach," says an MTV spokesman. "Viewers in-world also can choose to interact with sponsors' content and also purchase virtual as well as physical goods." This gives rabid fans of the show an interesting way to interact between episodes or seasons.

• Do-gooders can get a message across, too. Nonprofit organizations are also setting up shop in virtual reality environments to reach teens. Global Kids, a New York–based educational organization founded in 1990 that supports low-income inner-city youth to become community leaders and successful students, is the first nonprofit to have built an island in Teen Second Life. The Alliance Library System and OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) also just opened a teen library on its own island in Teen Second Life.

• Success can be hard to measure. Whether having these brands featured in popular virtual reality environments will lead to teens buying more Nike shoes, Levi's jeans, or a Scion when they are eventually old enough to purchase a car is debatable. There is no way to measure whether success in-world translates to a successful bottom line. Kids and teens are so bombarded with marketing in the offline world, seeing familiar brands in a virtual world may not really faze them.

• Only move in if it adds real value. Don't build an outpost or your own virtual reality environment if it doesn't offer an experience that is compelling and fun. If it's just a chat room full of avatars with your branding on it, it may be neither compelling nor fun. If you are offering a branded wand that lets avatars do something really cool—now that's fun. If you host a party with a virtual DJ and give out free virtual swag at the door, that could be fun, too.

Spend time in these worlds to really see what teens are doing and find out what they think is cool before you just show up with your branding.

Goodstein is the publisher of Ypulse.com, a Web site specializing in marketing to young people, and is the author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online. She covers teens and technology in an occasional column at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/.