If you work with a Toy client, have kids, or are just a little bit creepy, you may well have heard about Webkinz. Webkinz make fluffy plush toys like the ones above. The company started in 2005 in the US, and is doing rather well for itself. Each creature comes with a code that unlocks it's virtual self on webkinz.com that you have to look after and nurture, a bit like Simms. Not an original idea you might thus think, but the incredible thing is that three years later, the company has just been valued at $2bn.
Hasbro, Disney, Mattel and more have all since followed suit, offering toys with a virtual bogof attached. With this in mind it got me wondering how long it will be before many more brands start doing the same. The brilliance of the Webkinz idea is that kids often discard toys after a few days, but once you manage to hook them in to the vitrual world, they come back again and again. You build greater loyalty, along with a desire to get yet more fluffy pigs, cows and more, because clearly you have their permission to immerse them in the brand story.
What started as a great marketing idea to build and reward involvement, has since become an incredibly valuable virtual world in itself. How long will it be before each car you buy entitles you to enter a worldwide rally championship with real world prizes; each CD you buy invites you to interact and go behind the scenes with their virtual celebrity doppelgangers; each Coke can opens a worm hole in to the virtual happiness factory etc.
Sounds like a far more interesting way to offer value to consumers, than the usual buy one get one free that only ends up devaluing your brand in the long term.
- Sam
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