Immersive Advertising In The 2000s

Vaporweeb

Its n-not like I like you or anything!
Bronze
Joined
Feb 24, 2021
Messages
715
Reaction score
4,675
Awards
218
Website
falsememories.neocities.org
The website c. 1998 also includes partnerships with AT&T, Visa, IBM, and more.

List:
A Few Worlds Projects
Absolut Vodka

A marketing and promotion site for Absolut.
AnimalHouse.com
A 3D frat house for AnimalHouse.com, a Universal/Hyundai online project.
AT&T;
A virtual town as a prototype front end for AT&T;'s PersonaLink system.
Bowie World
An online 3D world created for David Bowie fans. Check out BowieNet for more information.
L. M. Ericsson
An employee conference and chat space.
Escot
A virtual entertainment and dating application called CyberOz City. Escot installed this unique environment in a series of clubs worldwide.
IBM
A prototype virtual 3D library front end to a database search engine.
National Information Infrastructure
A 3-D environment for the National Information Infrastructure Awards
PC Magazine
A 3D environment for the PC Magazine Technical Excellence Awards.
Sony Pictures
A 3D virtual promotion for the movie Jumanji, featuring the Jumanji house.
Starbright Foundation
Cutting edge multiuser virtual environments integrating video teleconferencing and virtual worlds for hospitalized children.
Tandem
A 3D marketing and promotion environment.
Toppan Printing Ltd.
Meet At Plaza, a 3D online chat and commerce environment now online in Japan.
Ungermann Bass
A 3D marketing and promotion environment.
Visa
A prototype of a 3D online banking environment.

I'd love to actually see images of these worlds, but they don't seem easy to find and I'm not in a position right now to figure out how to get worlds working on my machine and see for myself.
 
Virtual Cafe Awards

eco

The website c. 1998 also includes partnerships with AT&T, Visa, IBM, and more.

List:


I'd love to actually see images of these worlds, but they don't seem easy to find and I'm not in a position right now to figure out how to get worlds working on my machine and see for myself.
So Animal House is particularly accessible to anyone who can run worlds, actually. Animal House is probably in the top three most popular worlds in-game, easily. It's long-since been abandoned, so that's a bit weird to say, obviously, but it's readily available in-game. If I can get worlds running in the next week or so I'll post it. I actually had no idea it was a collab, honestly
 

naa

I found an article from 2006 about this topic. It's the only article I've been able to find about this topic period and it's fuckin' crazy dated, it also has statistics. Here's a link to the article, I'll be including some excerpts and summaries in my post because the article is very big. I'm mainly gonna focus on the Habbo Hotel branding, there's also sections on Second Life and more general topics though.

habbo 1.gif

Habbo Hotel had a feature where brands could check into new rooms, or sponsor preexisting rooms. Existing rooms were renamed after the advertiser, the room name and description were changed in the hotel navigator, the advertiser's billboard was placed in the room, and room personnel (pre-programmed bots) were programmed to reply to particular sentences that involve the current promotion taking place in the room.

habbo l'oreal.gif
In the fall of 2006, L'Oreal's Party Proof Gel set up shop in Habbo Hotel Germany, opening two sponsored rooms, holding a Party Proof in-game competition, and placing an advertorial on Habbo's homepage. The rooms (the Party Proof Club and the Party Proof Lounge) got L'Oreal 174,920 impressions (lounge) and 99,996 impressions (club), and pleasant clickthrough rates: 2,0% CTR in the lounge and 2,7% CTR in the club. More than 1,100 Habbos took part in the quest, while the advertorial on the home page netted 19.675 impressions. No doubt inspired by Party Proof's success in Germany, another L'Oreal brand, Garnier, then promoted its Fructis Style hair gels and waxes in Habbo Hotel Netherlands. Habbo characters could restyle their hairdos, then compete for prizes in the Habbo-Garnier Screentest Studio (which came with Garnier billboards and a stylist-bot). With more than 100,000 visits to the studio, 9% clickthroughs for the studio's billboards, and a 15% clickthrough to the Garnier site, the campaign definitely delivered.

habbo hotel club thirst lookin kinda THIRSTY.jpg

In 2005, Canadian Habbo Hotel integrated Sprite products into its public spaces, and introduced brand spokesperson 'Miles Thirst'. The soft drink brand renovated the largest club within HabboHotel.ca and turned it into Club Thirst: a two-storey interactive environment for Habbos to socialize in. It also secured virtual pouring rights within the hotel, making the soft drink the exclusive "real world" brand in its virtual setting. Twice a week, Miles Thirst opened up his penthouse to the rest of the Habbos, and just for visiting, each Habbo received two Habbo Credits–each with a real world value of about 20 cents–that they could use to buy stuff for their own rooms.

In addition, a TV spot was produced to run on "MuchMusic" to create awareness of the Sprite/HabboHotel. More than 10 million integrated impressions were delivered, and Club Thirst became the most sought after destination within Habbo Hotel. Research showed a 75% increase in Habbos' consumption of Sprite versus consumers never exposed to the campaign. Even more clearly, Habbo habitués developed a huge taste for Miles Thirst himself. At the end of the campaign, Thirst received more than 9,000 "handwritten" comments from kids everywhere. Many of the e-mails included highly personalized daydreams and experiences.
 

naa

I found an article from 2006 about this topic. It's the only article I've been able to find about this topic period and it's fuckin' crazy dated, it also has statistics. Here's a link to the article, I'll be including some excerpts and summaries in my post because the article is very big. I'm mainly gonna focus on the Habbo Hotel branding, there's also sections on Second Life and more general topics though.

View attachment 4429
Habbo Hotel had a feature where brands could check into new rooms, or sponsor preexisting rooms. Existing rooms were renamed after the advertiser, the room name and description were changed in the hotel navigator, the advertiser's billboard was placed in the room, and room personnel (pre-programmed bots) were programmed to reply to particular sentences that involve the current promotion taking place in the room.

View attachment 4430In the fall of 2006, L'Oreal's Party Proof Gel set up shop in Habbo Hotel Germany, opening two sponsored rooms, holding a Party Proof in-game competition, and placing an advertorial on Habbo's homepage. The rooms (the Party Proof Club and the Party Proof Lounge) got L'Oreal 174,920 impressions (lounge) and 99,996 impressions (club), and pleasant clickthrough rates: 2,0% CTR in the lounge and 2,7% CTR in the club. More than 1,100 Habbos took part in the quest, while the advertorial on the home page netted 19.675 impressions. No doubt inspired by Party Proof's success in Germany, another L'Oreal brand, Garnier, then promoted its Fructis Style hair gels and waxes in Habbo Hotel Netherlands. Habbo characters could restyle their hairdos, then compete for prizes in the Habbo-Garnier Screentest Studio (which came with Garnier billboards and a stylist-bot). With more than 100,000 visits to the studio, 9% clickthroughs for the studio's billboards, and a 15% clickthrough to the Garnier site, the campaign definitely delivered.

View attachment 4431
In 2005, Canadian Habbo Hotel integrated Sprite products into its public spaces, and introduced brand spokesperson 'Miles Thirst'. The soft drink brand renovated the largest club within HabboHotel.ca and turned it into Club Thirst: a two-storey interactive environment for Habbos to socialize in. It also secured virtual pouring rights within the hotel, making the soft drink the exclusive "real world" brand in its virtual setting. Twice a week, Miles Thirst opened up his penthouse to the rest of the Habbos, and just for visiting, each Habbo received two Habbo Credits–each with a real world value of about 20 cents–that they could use to buy stuff for their own rooms.

In addition, a TV spot was produced to run on "MuchMusic" to create awareness of the Sprite/HabboHotel. More than 10 million integrated impressions were delivered, and Club Thirst became the most sought after destination within Habbo Hotel. Research showed a 75% increase in Habbos' consumption of Sprite versus consumers never exposed to the campaign. Even more clearly, Habbo habitués developed a huge taste for Miles Thirst himself. At the end of the campaign, Thirst received more than 9,000 "handwritten" comments from kids everywhere. Many of the e-mails included highly personalized daydreams and experiences.
Hey so I'm adding on to this, Miles Thirst was a big rebranding campaign for Sprite, and is usually represented as a doll, they call him a "spokesdoll" a lot. The ad company who produced him said they wanted to get him some underground cred by avoiding typical online ad strategies, so they created content on MTV.com, MSN, brand integration with chat applications, and their Habbo Hotel campaign. They also produced unbranded, "homemade" viral videos directed by Heavy.com, including a bizarre Paris Hilton video featuring the doll that got half a million views before being removed from all websites. There were also regular TV ads, usually in collaboration with the NBA.
I'm going to post some screenshots of the online branded marketing. Oh and obviously here's the Paris Hilton video!

View: https://youtu.be/G4DRhRREYa8

miles thirst 1.jpg
miles thirst 2.jpg
miles thirst 3.jpg
miles thirst 4.jpg
miles thirst 5.jpg

source: the dude that invented him
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Virtual Cafe Awards

Vaporweeb

Its n-not like I like you or anything!
Bronze
Joined
Feb 24, 2021
Messages
715
Reaction score
4,675
Awards
218
Website
falsememories.neocities.org
Hey so I'm adding on to this, Miles Thirst was a big rebranding campaign for Sprite, and is usually represented as a doll, they call him a "spokesdoll" a lot. The ad company who produced him said they wanted to get him some underground cred by avoiding typical online ad strategies, so they created content on MTV.com, MSN, brand integration with chat applications, and their Habbo Hotel campaign. They also produced unbranded, "homemade" viral videos directed by Heavy.com, including a bizarre Paris Hilton video featuring the doll that got half a million views before being removed from all websites. There were also regular TV ads, usually in collaboration with the NBA.
I'm going to post some screenshots of the online branded marketing. Oh and obviously here's the Paris Hilton video!

View: https://youtu.be/G4DRhRREYa8

View attachment 4435View attachment 4436View attachment 4437View attachment 4438View attachment 4439
source: the dude that invented him

Wow, I can't believe I've never heard of Miles before now. There's being hip with the kids, and then there's this.

...
THIRSTIFY YOUR MSN MESSENGER WITH CUSTOM ICONS, ENVIRONMENTS, AND EVEN AUDIO BLURBS FROM THE MAN HIMSELF
 
Virtual Cafe Awards
  • LOL
Reactions: naa
Hey so I'm adding on to this, Miles Thirst was a big rebranding campaign for Sprite, and is usually represented as a doll, they call him a "spokesdoll" a lot. The ad company who produced him said they wanted to get him some underground cred by avoiding typical online ad strategies, so they created content on MTV.com, MSN, brand integration with chat applications, and their Habbo Hotel campaign. They also produced unbranded, "homemade" viral videos directed by Heavy.com, including a bizarre Paris Hilton video featuring the doll that got half a million views before being removed from all websites. There were also regular TV ads, usually in collaboration with the NBA.
I'm going to post some screenshots of the online branded marketing. Oh and obviously here's the Paris Hilton video!

View: https://youtu.be/G4DRhRREYa8

View attachment 4435View attachment 4436View attachment 4437View attachment 4438View attachment 4439
source: the dude that invented him

I remember seeing his figurines sold at curiosity shops and Borders but had no idea that was even his name.
 
Virtual Cafe Awards
  • Coffee (Like)
Reactions: naa

naa

I remember seeing his figurines sold at curiosity shops and Borders but had no idea that was even his name.
:OhISippyn:Damn he had figurines?? I didn't realize he was such a broad spectrum advertising campaign, only a handful of his commercials even made it to TV.

It's worth mentioning Sprite is a product of the Coca Cola company so I wonder if this was them just road testing a new marketing campaign with Sprite before they did it with Coca Cola itself.
 

Similar threads