Strategy Analytics has today released a report on the state of B2C marketing in virtual worlds, and it's a mixed picture. They are very bullish on future user numbers for virtual worlds, which continues to give marketers hope that virtual worlds in the future will be extremely valuable media, but negative about many brand attempts to tap this resource.
Strategy Analytics estimates that there were 46m virtual worlds users in 2006, 90m last year and that there will be 137m this year. That's building up to a future figure in ten years time of over a billion. Whilst its slightly difficult to know how they can possibly predict that accurately what will be happening ten years hence, there is a broad consensus that user numbers will see very strong growth. On top of that, virtual world sessions tend to be 45-50 minutes long – far more engagement than is common on websites. As Cnet writes, 'marketers are going to have to try awfully hard to blow this opportunity'.
But the bad news is the return on investment that brands have been seeing thus far:
This report finds that many companies have found that investments in virtual worlds have not met expectations. Their problems begin with poorly implemented media strategies that do not include virtual worlds as part of an integrated PR and promotional effort, and end with a lack of understanding of the appropriate metrics for assessing economic impact. [...]While companies can access virtual worlds with a small development investment, they often find that building and sustaining consumer momentum requires an on-going budget of at least 60% of their initial investment.
They are highly critical of the 'build it and they will come' approach that has too often been taken by brands. The history of marketing in virtual worlds is scattered with the carcasses of grand building projects with little or no engagement that were soon deserted. This report doesn't really tell us anything we didn't know: the hype surrounding brands in Second Life has passed, and now is the time for the real thinking to be done as to how this potentially fantastic opportunity is seized.
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