Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 11, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The beverage giant Coca-Cola has launched its current marketing campaign in a new virtual world. With immediate effect, the corporation is represented on the Internet with its own island in the shape of a Coke bottle. CC Metro – the name of the virtual presence – offers visitors the opportunity to bring an avatar to life, which can then shop and dance in the virtual Coca-Cola restaurant or visit an online cinema where short films are shown. The Coca-Cola island is embedded in the virtual universe of there.com, an online world similar to Second Life, only considerably less popular.
On CC Metro, consumers can buy clothing and accessories for their avatars by exchanging points collected from Coca-Cola bottle caps, the New York Times reports. The codes from the bottle caps are also used on the website mycokerewards.com, where various products are available for a certain number of points. In this way, the offline world in which Coca-Cola products are drunk is connected with the online world, says Carol Kruse, Vice President Interactive Marketing at the Coca-Cola Company.
Many well-known brands are now represented with their own presences in virtual worlds. Especially in Second Life, many corporations and companies have settled because of the great hype, sometimes also with false expectations. Why Coca-Cola chose a rather unknown online universe such as there.com for its marketing activities remains open for the time being. The operator company Makena Technologies at least boasts that it takes particular care to ensure that vulgar postings are sorted out and no copyright-protected content is improperly uploaded. For this reason, there.com is an ideal environment for advertising customers.
Critics of virtual worlds believe that it would in any case be wiser for companies to become active on social-networking portals than in Second Life & Co, because traffic there is considerably higher. At Coca-Cola, however, they apparently want to take advantage of various possibilities for online marketing. “The Internet universe contains just as many advertising options as the offline world with the traditional media TV, print and radio”, Kruse says. CC Metro is intended as a supplement to Coca-Cola’s activities on Facebook and on Sprite Yards, a social network for mobile phones launched by the company last spring.
Further Links:
- there.com
