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Tuomas Henttonen: Exploring Virtual Worlds: Key Success Factors in Virtual World Marketing (11.03.2008)

Major virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have already attracted millions of devoted users. The potential of virtual worlds is tremendous as the technology and applications develop further. The growing user base and special characteristics of virtual worlds make them increasingly attractive, especially for a marketer. Because of the special characteristics of virtual worlds, new ways to connect with customers can be developed and customers can be provided with virtual experiences that efficiently contribute to their learning.
The objective of this thesis was to determine the key success factors in virtual world marketing. As a fairly new phenomenon, virtual worlds have not yet received much attention in marketing research. Therefore, an exploratory approach was taken and qualitative methods of virtual ethnography were used. For the data collection, more than 1,100 pages of blog entries, including comments, were downloaded. In addition, participant observation methods and interviewing were used.
The findings of this study suggest that in virtual worlds, marketers have to provide value for customers in order to attract their attention because of the reciprocal nature of the interaction in virtual worlds. In addition, companies have to learn how to manage communities because communities play a critical role in virtual worlds. In order to foster customer learning and get more input from customers, marketing applications used should be highly interactive.

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