MMOG Marketing and My Argument with Paul Hemp's Avatar
AdAge published an interview with Paul Hemp yesterday called Why You Should Market to Virtual-World Avatars. Mr. Hemp wrote an article on the topic that will be appearing shortly in the Harvard Business Review, for which he is the senior editor.

UPDATE: Avatar-Based Marketing (Paul Hemp's June article, via Ilya Vedrashko of BRANDS IN GAMES. At the time of posting I had not read this article, only Hemp's interview in AdAge.)

An avatar is a gamer's digital extension in a given game, through which he achieves his in-game goals. In Ms. Pac-Man a gamer's avatar is the yellow circle. In Mario Brothers a gamer's avatar is a plumber in overalls. In MMOGs like Second Life, Worlds of Warcraft or Sims gamers have far more control over their avatars' appearances and attributes within the games' flexible, immersive realities.

From Mr. Hemp's interview the following paragraph well illustrates how brand marketers should be entering MMOGs:

"A marketer should make sure [their MMOG marketing efforts] are harmonious with the world in which it's living and enhance the nature of the game. I'll give you an example of Nike, which two or three years ago offered sneakers that made the avatars in a virtual world run faster. It seemed a natural part of the world and also enhanced people's experiences."

Hemp's interview pissed me off on the whole though, and I've spent last night and all today so far trying to figure out what I'm objecting to. Unfortunately I haven't had access to his other writings on the subject, and so can only address what I read in the interview.

it's good that he...
Before digging into my objections though I'll endorse for his intention, which is clearly to bring marketing attention to MMOGs. There is certainly enormous potential for marketers in MMOGs.

Further this is a space to watch closely, as I find it likely that MMOGs, social networks and search will begin merging in surprising and useful ways.

So while Hemp's interview *does* offer up a bit of common sense advice - market within the context of the MMOG - it's ultimately irresponsible and ill-serves those seeking to market in the MMOG space.

Avatar as a Gamer's Repressed Desires
My primary objection with Hemp's thinking is that he conflates the "hidden or unexplored part of a consumer's personality" with that consumer's corresponding in-game avatar. Further he emphasizes that these avatars, these digitally personified suppressions, "are able to influence their creators, make their own purchases through the hand of their creator..."

What a conceptual mess he presents us! Let's untangle it some.

First of all, I think it's perfectly accurate and sane to say that the repressed, hidden, and unexplored aspects of the human psyche influences human behavior. This is pretty much the human condition, one could argue.

Could MMOGs represent a sort of visual, open-psyched space in which to observe hidden and unexplored aspects of our target markets' personalities?

Certainly. And I'd point you to a very interesting study of social behavior in Worlds of War Craft as an example of academic investigation into what's really happening in the space of the world's largest MMOG.

But is it accurate to say that avatars could "make their own purchases through the hand of their creator?"

Would it be accurate for me to say that my MySpace profile - which is certainly an avatar of sorts and a place for me to explore and express myself - makes purchases through my hand?

And so begins my argument with Hemp's Avatar
But wait, Hemp would argue, your MySpace profile doesn't exist in a game environment. It can't take any actions.

Well Hemp, I'd rejoin, I can take actions THROUGH my profile, just as game players take actions through their avatars. I can take actions such as inviting people to be my friends, blogging about how incredible I am, joining groups, leaving comments on other peoples' pages, and emailing people about all my hopes and fears. Through this I participate with others in an online space and generate data that indicates what my purchase tendencies are.

And further, I'd submit to him that my social network interactions reveal a great deal of data about the "hidden or unexplored part of [my] personality."

So does my blog. So does my click stream data. So does my email inbox. We are inseparable from these hidden and unexplored parts of ourselves and they constantly spill into our daily lives.

Because I'm nice I'd let Hemp add, in a now-faltering voice, that I'm oversimplifying the issue, that I've conflated social networks and MMOGs into a conceptual mess that renders marketing thought impossible.

Then I'd quote his advice to marketers seeking to enter MMOGs: "A marketer should make sure [their MMOG marketing efforts] are harmonious with the world in which it's living..."

And I'd refer him to Adam Schultz's coverage of the X-Men + MySpace marketing efforts as an example of how marketers can create campaigns that are harmonious with the world in which they're living (and I'd have him read Adam's MySpace marketing with PosterFoo.com to move our conversation towards practical applications).

But wait, Hemp would say, I'm just an AVATAR of Hemp that you're controlling in the space of your brain! You're writing everything that I'm saying and I represent your internal shadow thinker that under-explores and under-thinks ideas, the part that you struggle against but can't ever erase!

There would be a few moments of uncomfortable silence, as always comes when one is presented with a difficult or unpleasant truth.

Then to patch things up I think we'd have a conversation about how fiction writers describe characters who get out of control in their writing as taking on lives of their own, and should we call MMOGs multiple-author fictions?

Should we re-examine the art of story telling to uncover ways to meaningfully interact with gamers?

Should we re-read "Alone Together?" Exploring the Social Dynamics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (pdf)?

Should we interview the game creators themselves to understand how they want their worlds to work and find brand synergies there?

And how could one draw mainstream entertainment programming from these MMOG worlds emerging?

And what's your favorite machinima?

MMOGs as a CHANNEL
So. Is YOUR company a candidate for MMOG marketing? Yes, so long as:

a) your target market plays the MMOG you're engaging
b) you can translate your brand compellingly into the context of the game's world

Need you concern yourself with shadow consumers and hidden desires expressed through game worlds?

Sure! It's interesting stuff, but like the guys who studied WoW you should have a scraper handy and will need to be aware of what data you can actually scrape from these worlds - and I suspect MMOG companies aren't very open to info harvesting.

At any rate, it's important that you think of MMOGs as a marketing channel, just as email and search are marketing channels. Granted, MMOGs are an interactive online story-telling space, but they are still channels through which you can create meaningful brand interactions. (I see in Hemp's interview the vestiges of hype that still plagues the search and RSS channels.)

Ideally you will have a gamer as a guide too, and someone who can help you determine whether MMOGs even make sense for your brand, which MMOG to participate in and how to execute.

If you ARE marketing in MMOGs, I'd love to talk. If you want to do some brainstorming on how to execute, let me know too - I'd love to join you (and so would my MMOG buddies here at MarketSmart Interactive). 919-433-3139; selowdown@gmail.com

Resources
Clickable Culture
Play On
parc
BRANDS IN GAMES
3pointD.com (via Tony Walsh - thx!)

MySpace + World of Warcraft: Social Networking Needs Levels
NewsCorp, Fox and MySpace didn't just hit a home run with X-Space, it's a grand slam
MySpace marketing with PosterFoo.com
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |