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Those of you accustomed to thinking of Gaia as the holistic, green theory of planetary interdependence created by James Lovelock are in for a shock.
Gaia Online is one of a range of social networking sites aimed at children and teenagers and the business model is intriguing if you’re a parent – draw your kids into an immersive world and build that brand as their home from home or new best friend. Giga OM breathlessly writes that at Millsberry:
Staffers work with advertisers to create, not passive billboards, but an extended immersive experience. Gaia’s campaign for New Line Cinema’s fantasy adventure The Last Mimzy, for example, challenged their users to accomplish a series of tasks in order to get their own special Gaian-only Mimzy (a super-intelligent bunny). Hundreds of thousands of these Mimzyies were given out—meaning some 10-20% of their total user base jumped through the hoops to win the advertiser’s prize. (By contrast, when Nissan began giving away virtual versions of their cars in Second Life, far less than 1% of Residents took them up on the offer.)
Great! Right?
You guessed it – I’m not so sure. We’re seriously re-thinking our own television policy after yet more reports of recent studies about the effect on under-threes (especially close to bedtime) but dudelet at least already recognises and frequently filters a TV advert. This kind of Second Life inspired marketing is a little more insidious and the penetration these sites are achieving with an agenda basically composed of selling children stuff is quite terrifying. As I said in an earlier post about new regulations on advertising, marketing to children is already routing around barriers put around TV. And around parents.
The 800 lb gorilla of social networking sites, MySpace, offers the grimmest prospect. When I said that brands want to be your child’s best friend, I meant it. GigaOM describes how Adidas and EA
- made their brands into persona,
- enabled sharing (e.g. forward this to a friend) and
- “[gave] the consumer a chance to realize their dream/fantasy.”
You know, I enjoy marketing. I do it every day as part of my job (but honestly, I use my evil powers for gooooood). Still, there’s something creepy, something downright wrong, like children in stilettos and cropped halter neck tops, about these attempts to colonise children’s imaginations. Jesus, marketing droids – can’t you at least pick on people your own size?
Filed under: marketing, parenting, teenagers | Tagged: Gaia, MySpace, social networking
Yeah, you are gonna want to keep an eye on all those attempts to colonize dudelet’s imagination…It is SO insidious…
My husband once taught a course on “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television,” by Jerry Mander. It’s interesting reading.
Immersive advertising is still advertising, no matter how intriguing it seems. It’s still trying to get you to buy something, and that is just not what children should be concerned with. I’m also not clear why children or teens need “social networking.” Isn’t that a fancy name for making friends on the playground or in math class?
“An agenda basically composed of selling children stuff” describes pretty much any corporate entity these days. Disney, BabyEinstein, Dora the Explorer…while all of these brands may say they are trying to educate or entertain, really their primary goal as corporations is to make money for its shareholders, and the ethics of marketing to children isn’t relevant.
Insidious is the word. And how’s this for assimilating art into the corporate agenda – dudelet came home yesterday with two Top Trumps cards the childminder (they probably came in a cereal packet) gave him – from the Lion, THe Witch and the Wardrobe. Can you imagine CS Lewis’ reaction. THough, thinking about it, Xianity has spent the last 2000 years embedding their agenda into every aspect of Western art and culture. Now there’s immersive marketing for you. They only started to lose their touch a hundred years ago or so…
One quick note — you refer to Millsbury and GAIA as one and they are not. GAIA is a private social networking/virtual world company, which does indeed accept advertising. Millsbury is something you would perhaps find more alarming, a social networking/virtual world run by General Mills.
You should be heartened to know that GAIA largely targets teens. There are similar online worlds that are similar and targetted at a younger tween/younger audience – noteably Webkinz & Club Penguin. However, perhaps sensing the tension from parents both of these show the restraint to not include any advertising.
I didn’t specific intend that reading but I can see how it might be read that way – will edit later if I have time! Gaia does indeed largely target teens but I’d argue that 13 and 14 years old are even more vulnerable in some ways, given the psychological processes of identity forming going on, entry into adolescence and so on. Millsbury is indeed pretty appalling.
Thanks for dropping by!!