Media services firm Exponential Interactive has identified what it believes will be the key online advertising trends in 2008, based on knowledge gleaned through its Tribal Fusion subsidiary. Virtual worlds are one of the trends, alongside one-to-one marketing, online video advertising, local ad platforms and the semantic web. They've got some interesting views, too:
"2008 will see the increased popularity of virtual worlds, but it won't be Second Life. Instead, users will increasingly shift towards speciality worlds more closely associated with their lifestyles or interests. For marketers, this means an opportunity to create whole worlds around products, or to customise environments inside speciality virtual environments."Neopets is cited as one of the key examples, although this may be as much because it's one of the sites in Tribal Fusion's ad network. They also mention Coca-Cola's Coke Studios world (pictured) though. There was a lot of buzz at the VWFE conference about exploring new business models, including advertising, so Exponential's claims will be welcomed by many virtual world companies - although they'll be hoping these predictions turn into hard cash from advertisers obviously.
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