Proposal For Submission

Research Topic:

Our research topic is about Avatar Marketing. Today, people can now have easy access to the World Wide Web or the Internet where users can connect with each other through social network or even through online games. We’re living in a social media world, where our avatar is often the first impression others get about us as we interact virtually on social networks, blogs, microblogs and other online communities. Our avatars are representation of ourselves as it represents us in the virtual world.

Regardless of the different types of avatars that can be created in the virtual world, most of these avatars have accessories or virtual items which people would pay real cash for. For a start, Second Life which is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, its virtual economy is bringing in nearly $500 million a year in virtual sales alone; the virtual economy may even be doing better than the real economy. It can also be seen in social network such as Facebook, where there are applications for games such as FarmsVille which users can purchase these virtual items to place it on their virtual farm. Thus, we are engrossed in how the avatar is marketed to the online users in the virtual world as well as what are the concern in using these avatars in the online communities.

As the Internet users are growing and are still growing. It can be seen that the Internet users now represents almost 30% of the world’s population which is a staggering amount of 2 billion people around the world. Therefore, we want to analyze on the uses of avatar and how these avatar is marketed to them in the virtual world as well as the current issues which avatar users face during their time in the virtual world through this research.


Research Objectives:

1. To analyze the current usage of avatar in the virtual world and online communities
2. To have a clearer view on the uses of avatar that can relate to our lives
3. To find out how these avatars are marketed to the online users in the virtual world
4. To understand why people still pay real cash for these virtual items
5. To identify what are the possible issues that avatar users face when using their avatars


Report Outline:

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of avatars in the virtual world
1.2 How avatars relates in our daily lives
2.0 Application of avatars in the virtual world
2.1 Online games
2.2 Social communities
3.0 How avatars are marketed to the online users
3.1 Strategies on how the avatars is marketed
3.2 Reasons why these people shop for virtual items
4.0 Issues for using avatars in the virtual world
4.1 Privacy Issues
4.2 Discrimination Issues
4.3 Commercialization of avatars Issues
5.0 Conclusion
6.0 Recommendation
7.0 References


Literature Review:

Avatar is a being you’ve created as a representation of yourself in this online environment (Hemp, P 2004). That means “Avatar” encompasses not only complex being created for use in a shared virtual reality but also virtual representation of a user in an online community. According to Hemp (2004), there are 2 types of avatars based games: one is combat focused games such as EverQuest, Lineage, and World of Warcraft. Others would be social interaction provision games such as Second life and Entropia Universe which aimed at adults and Sims online and Habbo Hotel: teenager oriented

It can be seen that avatars have the attraction of that proposition which made avatar fashion and possessions, from the things you'd buy or want in the real world as these avatars are used by online users which is the millions of people who play games on Facebook or dabble in virtual worlds such as Second Life (O’Donnell 2009). Accoding to O’Donnell (2009), the growth is being driven largely by the increasing popularity of online social gaming. As a result, virtual worlds and game companies typically let users join and/or play for free, and charge them when they want to upgrade their avatar and its accessories or enhance their gaming experience. Also, virtual goods also are exchanged online by members of social-networking sites, especially Facebook.

In addition, virtual online worlds have the possibilities to overcome traditional marketing through e-commerce as the virtual settings can give marketers to design and implement complex avatars as recommendation agents (Jin & Bolebruch 2009). Besides that, in the virtual world, these marketers tend to provide a more realistic and modernized avatars such as Second Life to the online users in order to attract them to purchase these virtual goods using real cash. Also, companies are increasingly considering virtual worlds as a new frontier for doing online business with current or new customers. According to Arakji & Lang (2008), people may adopt these social interaction games to satisfy various needs and desires. Some are even interested in the fantasy aspect of the games, as they can escape from the real life pressure to the virtual worlds (Arakji & Lang 2008). For this reason, more and more people are becoming engross into these virtual world where people would start to customize their avatars in order fulfill their needs as they are not able to do in the real life. Thus, people often buy virtual products that are similar to what they own, or yearn to own which can be found in the real world, and often a whole lot more (O’Donnell 2009).
It can also be seen that these avatars can take position of a trust intermediary in electronic commerce. According to Bauer & Neumann (2005), these avatars can positively influence the trust of a consumer towards the supplier in the virtual environment. Hence, the use of avatars enhances the trust among the people itself in the Internet. Also, it can be seen that more and more online users are beginning to do online trading in the virtual world where they can trade virtual goods in online games or social interactive games.

Also, with the emergence of virtual worlds as a common part of society among the online communities, many people have turned to their avatars as their identical personality (Chang 2009). According to Chang (2009), the avatar can be seen as the personality itself of the user behind it. However, even if they are in the virtual world, the avatars are not as innocent as they appear. For an example, intrusions on privacy would be a problem as the avatars are market to the people in the virtual realm where people would sometimes give up their identity such as age, address, name and more to online stalkers. In addition, conversation in the virtual world would be as real in the real world. Thus, users tend to say things in private that people don't get to hear. But, others would not know of the virtual world developers that could 'hear' the conversation between two users, using their avatars. According to Hemp (2004), there is also consumers’ privacy concern about the detailed tracking of avatar data. As a result, these issues are still on-going and have not been fully resolve.


References:

Major references:

Arakji, R.Y, Lang, K.R 2008, ‘Avatar Business Value Analysis: A method for evaluation of business value creation in virtual commerce’ Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 9, no.3, viewed on 9th September 2010
This journal articles talks about the valuation of businesses inside the virtual world where the avatar business is evaluated to gain information for the cost-benefit analysis to estimate the value of virtual commerce venture. We decided to use this article because it gives us the information for the cause of why more and more businesses are now venturing into the virtual environment to market to these avatars.

Bauer, H.H, Neumann, M.M 2005, ‘Investigating the effects of avatars as virtual representatives in electric commerce’ Conference: Electronic Marketing, viewed on the 10th October 2010
This research article explores on the details of appearance of avatars in the virtual environment which can relate to the increase their trust in e-commerce. We decided to use this article because of the appearance of avatars which can be relate to the virtual world in most online games or social interactive game such as Second Life where whether they would trust a human-like characters (Avatars) for e-commerce or virtual commerce.

Hemp, P 2004, Harvard Business Review: ‘Avatar-Based Marketing’, viewed on 14th September 2010, http://tekinico.free.fr/sharing/2006RdersGuide/pdfs/R0606Bp2.pdf
This journal article talks about the marketing in real world compare to the marketing in virtual world as well as marketing to avatars. It gives an in-depth review of the marketing in virtual worlds through advertising and branding for virtual commerce. We decide to use this article as it provides indications on whether the online communities are affected by the new marketing through virtual worlds.

Jin, S-A & Bolebruch, J 2009, ‘Avatar-Based Advertising in Second Life: The role of presence and attractiveness of virtual spokespersons’ Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol. 10, no.1 (Fall 2009), pp.51-60, viewed 10th September 2010
This research article talks about the study that examines the effects of spokes-avatar that provide product information to consumers for online-shopping experience. Also, it investigates the effect of spokes-avatar’ physical characteristics on consumer’s evaluation of their physical attractiveness. We decided to use these articles because it gives us the insight of how the physical characteristic of a speaking avatar affect the behavior of others in purchasing products especially during online.

O’Donnell, J 2009, ‘Unlike reality, virtual retail sales are hot, especially for avatars’ USA Today, viewed on 10th October 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2009-12-23-virtual-retail-sales-avatar_N.htm
This article is about the virtual retail which focuses on virtual commerce where online users now purchase these virtual goods online that are increasing popular in online games as well as social interactive games. It shows how virtual shopping has growing into a multi-million dollar enterprise. We decided to use this article because it provides us information about the reasons for the increasing popularity in using virtual commerce especially avatars.

Chang, A 2009, Squidoo: Virtual Worlds Avatar, viewed on 15 September 2010, http://www.squidoo.com/virtual-world-avatars#module30554242
This article is about the uses of avatars in the virtual world, as well as the origins of virtual world avatars. It also talks about the freeware business model for virtual worlds where online users can come and interact with each other using their avatars for free. We decided to choose this article because it provides the information about the usage of avatars. Also, it gives us indications about the issues on avatars especially in the virtual worlds where many issues and challenges are still affecting the online communities.

Other references:

Bartle, R.A, 2009, Security and Privacy and Virtual Worlds, http://www.nis-summer-school.eu/nis09/presentations/02_barlte.pdf, viewed on 15 September 2010

Damer B, 1997, Applications of Virtual Worlds, viewed on 14 September 2010.
http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars/book/chus/chus1.htm

Enright, A 2007, ‘How the Seconds Half Lives: Marketers are setting up brands in Second Life. Now what?’ Marketing News, viewed on 7th October 2010, https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.5&thid=12bc928aebf934ba&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3Dc8d66efc2a%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12bc928aebf934ba%26attid%3D0.5%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbQHEhbFmtP22gzvbmn-5S3OlzLuZg

Grosol, J.M 2009, ‘The Proteus Effect: How our avatar changes online behavior’ Psych Central, viewed on 2nd October 2010, http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/11/24/the-proteus-effect-how-our-avatar-changes-online-behavior/

Holzwarth, M, Janiszewski, C, & Neumann, M.M 2006, ‘The influence of avatar on online consumer shopping behavior’ Journal of Marketing, vol.70, p.p 19-36, viewed on 5th October 2010

Science Daily, 2010, What Does Your Avatar Say about You, viewed 15 September, 2010
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100726094905.htm

For Discussion: Live a Second Life

Well, this video in YouTube have open up to me more about what avatars in the Virtual Worlds can do. In this video, it talks about what are the pros and cons of the virtual world. As you can see in the video, avatars can be use as a simultaneous connection between two or more people where you can communicate by voice or text in the virtual worlds. Also, one of the beauty of having an avatar in the virtual world is that, people around the world can come together for business meetings and have discussion even when they are from different parts of the world. This makes it easier for communication. For an example, in the virtual world called Second Life, a person can come to a place in Malaysia of the virtual world to meet with another person who is already in Malaysia of the virtual world even though they are not from the same country in the real world.

Besides that, in the virtual worlds there are virtual pets you could take care without having to spend money to buy foods for the pets itself. It can be seen that, in the virtual world, pets can be fed and play with as what can be done in the real world. Also, toys can be bought in the virtual world for the virtual pets to play with and the pets can even dress up.

However, the video also states that by using these virtual worlds, will it somehow replace the real world relationship? Will it replace the person to person interaction in real life? One example that could be seen is that, parents and kids would have not as much time to interact between each other as technologies like the virtual worlds have used up most of their time and they would have less time to interact with each other. This would then distant the relationship between both parents and children.

Here's some question for you to think about, is having an avatar in the virtual world a good thing? Will it reduce the time spend in the real world to interact with friends and family? What would you say?

Avatar Market Place

Here is one website that interest me which is called Avatar Marketplace. It is a place where online users can come to shop online for Virtual Worlds such as Second Life. The Online Shopping Services that Avatar Marketplace provided uses 'Opensim Grid' or also known as the OpenSimulator Grid which is an open source server platform for hosting virtual worlds. The good thing about the Opensim Grid is that it allows users to teleport between multiple OpenSim-based virtual worlds. This would make it easier for the residents of these virtual worlds to trade items created within the virtual worlds. Also, in the Virtual Worlds, the trading is done using game money (G$) which can be use in any participating Virtual Worlds. If you are interested, you can come and visit the website below.



Avatar Marketplace <-- Click here!

For Discussion: Part 4 Issues with Avatar Marketing

Well, as you all know, avatars are mostly meant to be merely a representation of the personality of the user in virtual worlds. The avatar itself does not necessarily have to be an exact replica of the user. However, as the years goes by, with the emergence of virtual worlds as a common part of society among the online communities, many people have turned to their avatars as their identical personality. Sometimes, the avatar can be seen as the personality itself of the user behind it. It can be seen that the users are mostly teenagers or even children who plays those online games or even adapting themselves in the online communities through forums and virtual worlds



However, even if they are in the virtual world, the avatars are not as innocent as they appear. For an example, intrusions on privacy would be a problem as the avatars are market to the people in the virtual realm where people would sometimes give up their identity such as age, address, name and more to online stalkers. Also, conversation in the virtual world would be as real in the real world. Thus, users tend to say things in private that people don't get to hear. But, others would not know of the virtual world developers that could 'hear' the conversation between two users, using their avatars.



Besides that, how come there are no avatar whom are disabled or of a certain eclectic skin color? Everything that is done in the real world can also be done in the virtual worlds. For an example, when the users include their race, gender and class which were not supposed to make its way here, could eventually represent the actual personality of the users. Thus, when the new users, especially children, enter into these online communities, they would be easy target for online predators as they have little but basic knowledge of what is going on in the virtual world, and of what types of avatars they should appear. This would cause problems for discrimination as they are pressure by the standards that is conform in the virtual world.



Even so, the users that uses the avatar would think that in order to survive in the long term, they have to think commercially. In other words, users would have to fork out money from their pockets to pay for the various items or even customize accessories for their avatars in order to fit in the communities. Thus, it can be seen that not only the avatars are market to the users but also the clothing and accessories of the avatars that is market to them. Unfortunately, most young users such as teenagers and children still do not have the income to purchase these items for their avatars.

In my opinion, these virtual worlds should not be fully commercialize or in other words, they should not have to pay for the use of avatars as in the virtual world, people can come together around the world to learn more about each other cultures and differences which maybe one day could resolve the war issues around the world. As some would say, it is still true that the best things in life are free.

Dear friends, do you face the same issues when you are online in the virtual world? What's your thought of using avatars in the online communities like Facebook or online forum?


References:

Bartle, R.A, 2009, Security and Privacy and Virtual Worlds, http://www.nis-summer-school.eu/nis09/presentations/02_barlte.pdf, viewed on 15 September 2010.

Squidoo, 2009, Virtual Worlds Avatar, http://www.squidoo.com/virtual-world-avatars#module30554242, viewed on 15 September 2010.

Part 3 Avatar Marketing Strategies

Virtual worlds are great platforms for business innovation and development. However commerce in virtual worlds is still at the experimental stages. There are many problems. Although problems persist, the potential for business in these immersive frontiers cannot be ignored.

Strength
Virtual worlds have real economies. Firstly, many companies import real branding and advertising to the virtual world. That creates an environment for people who can’t buy the valuables in the real world an opportunity to do purchases for their avatars to satisfy their desire that they can’t achieve in reality. Secondly in the virtual world many companies hold marketing and sponsorship of events, avatars’ participation helps build reputation of the companies. Lastly, companies often take advantage of virtual world to do new product research. By checking the statistics of the avatars’ activity, companies have a better view of their product developments.

Weakness
Every coin has two sides. Avatar marketing has weaknesses as well. First of all, there are many inactive users who have no concept that the avatars are their representation. They don’t put themselves in the immersive environment, to the opposite, they separate reality and virtual world. Additionally, the infrastructure of the virtual world is not fully developed. Many problems occur: lag times and crashes, downtimes, clunky interface etc.

Opportunities
Virtual worlds are popular places on the Internet and are more and more popular. According to Gartner Research predicted that by the end of 2011, 80% of active Internet users will have some sort of presence in a virtual world. That means more and more people tend to link virtual world with reality, avatars and themselves. It’s a good signal for companies that it is time to market avatars to further market their real customers.

Threats
Immersive environments are more complicated than they appear. That is approved by the fact that virtual world duplications of real world products and marketing techniques do not appear to work. Besides, it is difficult to judge how users respond to marketing efforts online based on their avatars’ performance. Lastly there is a lack of proven metrics to measure business performances in immersive environments issues.


Based on the analysis above, I come up with some strategies.
According to new Concordia University research that shows in most cases, avatars reflect the personality of their creators. (Science Daily, 2010) Overall, the impressions made by the physical traits of the avatar match certain dimensions of the true personality of the creator. This correlation between avatar and creator helps identify the consumers behind the avatars and will lead to improved avatar-marketing strategy.

To do avatar marketing, companies can host some social media campaign to call on all the web people to be engaged in the virtual world. Besides companies can take full use of official online spots such as facebook, MySpace, YouTube channel, and Twitter which have many existing fans to help spread influencing scope to attract more people be involved in the virtual world.

Damer B, 1997, Applications of Virtual Worlds, viewed on 14 September 2010.
http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars/book/chus/chus1.htm
Science Daily, 2010, What Does Your Avatar Say About You, viewed 15 September, 2010
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100726094905.htm

For Discussion: Part 2 Avatar Marketing Application

Well, you all may have a rough idea on what avatar is from the previous post, where avatar is a representation or embodiment of the identity of the virtual world icon which you and I can obtain through the manifestation of one's presence in these online communities. As you all know, avatars has been used widely around the Internet where forums, online games, and more have used these avatars for people as their representation in the virtual world. These avatars have evolved from a one-dimensional user-name and a two-dimensional icon(picture) to a 3-dimensional figure which can be seen in games or social networking virtual worlds such as Second Life.



In most games, the player's representation is fixed, however some games offer a basic character model, or template, and then allow customization of the physical features as the player sees fit. For an example, a player can customize their avatar physical appearance such as hairstyle, and also can be dressed in wide ranged of clothes. However, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are have a more sophisticated avatars which player can customize like skin tones, facial expression and more.



Besides that, avatars are also widely use among the online communities in the virtual worlds as what I had mention earlier. One example that can be seen would be in Second Life which they take on a whole new level and become the exact replica or otherwise a created persona of the user himself. Through this new experience, Second Life is attracting more and more users who are not interested in gaming where it becomes a virtual meeting place for users to socialize among themselves using avatars. Also,most of these avatars are free for users to create as the popularity is rising by the increasing computer users for the Internet. Users can then communicate in the virtual worlds, by creating their own avatars that uses instant messaging systems to communicate.



Avatars have also been used for educational purposes where universities uses virtual world as the virtual classroom. This is where the students are able to communicate with their lecturers through a virtual worlds that represents them using avatars to enhance their learning experience. Even so, a new concept for the uses of virtual worlds has been tested where a virtual shopping mall in the future that is fill with avatars poking at merchandise which would definitely change the ways how shoppers shop in the Internet. Thus, it can be seen that Internet users nowadays uses avatars to represent them in most of the social networking sites or even games in the virtual world where there will be a continuous growing community of users in the coming future.

If you were to create an avatar, would you use it for games or socializing?
What do you think of the use of avatars for educational purposes? Do you think its convenient?

Feel free to leave your comment below. Thanks!

References:

Damer B, 1997, Applications of Virtual Worlds, http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars/book/chus/chus1.htm, viewed on 14 September 2010.

Avatar pictures - fresh our eyes - enjoy - guys