August 17, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
Please check out some video footage of our fearless leader, Dan Jansen, answering questions at a recent BBDO Digital Lab in New York City.
“So how can brands start to play in this compelling high growth sector where digital creativity meets consumer demand? And what does the future really hold for the entire category? Those were just some of the questions that Dan Jansen, founder and CEO of leading virtual goods platform Virtual Greats, attempted to answer during his recent visit to the Digital Lab.”
http://digitallabblog.com/digital-lab-blog/virtual-goods-and-virtual-greats/
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August 06, 2010 | by Brett Orlanski
Virtual Greats teamed up with another leader in the social media space, Viximo, to draw a line in the sand and put shape and size to the branded virtual goods (BVG) market. Full disclosure: we co-authored and were underwriters of the report. But independent analysts and third party research have all pointed to the growth of the generic virtual goods market. VG and Viximo stepped up and decided to provide insight into our niche of this business. We pulled in unpublished data from our partners and sales results from other campaigns to forecast major growth in the next 3-5 years. We also include insights into how to position and sell BVGs as well as identify trends we see in the industry.
We are excited to share our findings and best practices with you.
The full report can be accessed here: http://viximo.com/interior/resources/082010_branded-market
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July 26, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
Check out a summary of the report here as well as a good article from the LA Times on Disney, Playdom, & the social gaming space.
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July 20, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
From Social Media Biz: Virtual goods are being unearthed from the basement and receiving the attention they deserve, thanks especially to the mass media coverage of social games like Farmville and the penetration of smartphones. Asides from serving as hedonistic tokens of differentiation, virtual goods are being eyed by brands as a popular vehicle for advertising. New research by Appssavvy found that virtual goods marketing increased aided brand awareness by 44.5%, ad awareness by 60.1% and purchase intent by 31.5%.
Link to original article here
Link to full Appssavvy Study here
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July 16, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
Check out this fantastic article that talks about brands & social gaming! http://bit.ly/aQYOpH
“Contrary to popular belief, all brands can find a space within the social gaming sphere. The question is not whether a brand is suitable, but rather what gaming experience can a brand provide and to what audience.
A brand doesn’t have to be the centre of a social game, but by providing something of value to game play, whether it’s an item, currency or a new environment, it is still possible to participate with consumers in a meaningful and relevant way.”
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July 06, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
Florida State University has released the results of a study conducted in conjunction with Planet Calypso parent First Planet Company, about how virtual world experiences affect user buying habits. The study concluded that users who interact with a brand in a virtual world environment are far more likely to purchase brand products than users who interact with a brand through traditional advertising mediums. The study is expected to help scientists better understand how cognitive states influence consumer behavior.
Full article here.
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June 23, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
Check out this fantastic TechCrunch article! “Already, branded virtual goods are clicked ten times more often than non-branded equivalents.” Great news for VG and definitely worth a read…take a look!
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June 08, 2010 | by Lilia Madden
The Virtual Greats team is in full force at Licensing International Expo 2010 in Las Vegas. If you’d like to get in touch to set up a meeting shoot us an e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)!
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October 23, 2009 | by Reuben Steiger
OK, so here goes. . . .
We’ve always believed in virtual goods. These are defined as the digital goods and services that people buy or actively trade in games, virtual worlds and online communities. Estimates vary on the size of the market but the consensus is that it’s roughly $1.0 Billion in US in 2009, larger in Asia and growing as fast as 75% year-over-year. Virtual Greats’ founding hypothesis a year ago was that if we could dominate the area of branded and premium virtual goods, this could have huge value. We knew that 35 - 40% of real world products are branded. We hoped this would translate into virtual goods because of how well brands help people express identity, group and social affiliations and rank data.
Over the last year, we managed to put together a library of rights to sell Virtual Goods associated with Artists (Justin Timberlake to Elvis ) Intellectual Property (NBA, Major League Soccer, 42 Division 1 Schools) and lifestyle brands like Jay Z’s Rocawear. Until yesterday, we were selling hundreds of products across 12 platforms. Yesterday, we announced Facebook as lucky 13. As of yesterday, Virtual Greats is currently selling 85 products in the newly redesigned Facebook Gift Store. For those unfamiliar, the gift store Facebook launched Gifts on February 8, 2007, which allows users to send virtual gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient’s profile. Gifts cost $1.00 each to purchase, and a personalized message can be attached to each gift. Some have estimated that the previous (and quite modest) product was driving $50 - 60 million in 2009 revenue.
This is a major evolution for the industry of virtual goods and for our little company. First, it marks the creation of something like an Itunes for virtual goods. Secondly, it lays social objects, as well as songs as MP3’s over the social graph. We think this is a big deal and we’re so thrilled to be sharing it with you. I’d love to hear whether people think this interesting as well as speculation on where the market is going.
Finally, a picture of me buying my wife a Lakers’ Jersey for 30 Facebook credits ($3 , billed direct to my iPhone ! ) She’ll look virtually great in it!
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April 08, 2009 | by Mat Small
The OnHollywood 100 were unveiled today, and we were honored to be part of a prominent virtual goods trend, as highlighted by Virtual Goods News. Our CEO Dan Jansen will be speaking at the OnHollywood event at the Sofitel in West Hollywood on April 28.
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March 20, 2009 | by Brett Orlanski
We are so pleased to announce our partnership with the NBA. We are excited to be able to offer a wide range of products from all NBA teams. Already items are available in RockYou’s application Superpets and soon in WeeWorld as well, followed by our newest platform partner, Planet Cazmo.
This is a great step forward in our IP acquisition efforts and will be a fun way for passionate basketball fans to share in a little piece of the action, virtually. More great IP and distribution plans to come soon!
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March 06, 2009 | by Brett Orlanski
We’re happy to announce that we closed another deal with the one and only T-Pain to sell branded virtual merchandise based on his iconic image and likeness. The first deployment is through RockYou’s app, Superpets! T-Pain sunglasses, hats, hair and of course his gold grill are now available through Superpets on Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster.
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March 03, 2009 | by Brett Orlanski
Check out this great article that features Virtual Greats and Dan Jansen.
http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/31442
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February 03, 2009 | by Brett Orlanski
If you were watching the Superbowl, you may have caught the “Avatar” ad for Coke Classic.
http://www.hulu.com/superbowl/55620/super-bowl-xliii-ads-coke-classic-avatar
Just another sign that virtual avatars are becoming more commercial!
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January 05, 2009 | by Reuben Steiger
Virtual Greats launches Snoop Dogg/ Tila Tequila Virtual Goods with Rockyou’s Super Pets in Myspace and Facebook
I am so excited about this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it is the first time we’ve extended premium virtual goods into virtual worlds running within the world’s largest social networks.
For those of you not up to speed, Super Pets is a virtual pet experience that allows you to adopt a pet, train it and battle it against your friends’ pets. Within Facebook, Super Pets has 417, 000 monthly Active Users and within Myspace, it has 4.5 million monthly Active Users. One of the challenges brands had in being sucessful in Second Life was that while the monthly active population was large (and the time per user, enormous), there was no good way to get in front of all those users. Well, in Facebook with Superpets we’re now in front of an audience half as large as Second Life, and in Myspace, in front of one 4.5 times bigger than Second Life.
As for what we’re selling, we’re starting simple with items like winter hoodies for your pet that say Snoop’s cathcphrase, “Drop It Like it’s Hot” (you can see one on my avatar below, styled as a raccoon as a nod of the hat to my man Loic LeMeur and his Seesmic Logo.
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