In-Game Guerilla Marketing Hits WoW
It’s a well known though underappreciated fact that many of the tactical innovations in direct response marketing campaigns originate from less than glamorous segments like the adult industry. In Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft (WoW), gold farming firms represent the virtual world’s seedy socioeconomic underbelly of commerce, giving us a glimpse at an intense example of an innovative, large-scale in-world (i.e. inside a virtual world) guerilla marketing campaign.
It’s important to understand that when people talk about advertising in virtual worlds they usually assume old-world models such as billboards, Tshirts, posters and other traditional approaches, none of which truly connect in-world due to the fact that people go in-world to escape the real world, not to see it reincarnated in all of its tacky glory.
The image above depicts a scene from Stormwind, one of the capital Alliance cities in World of Warcraft, adorned with the corpses of over 50 1st level Warlocks who have given their lives for guerilla marketing — in this case promoting the services of one MMOP.com (yes, an in-game gold merchant).
From what I’ve been able to gather through some basic research & Q&A with other players, the gampaign was lauched in multiple cities (Alliance & Horde factions) on multiple servers. It’s important to understand that WoW does not allow for in-game advertising, nor does it condone such behavior. Nevertheless, MMOP.com was able to run a successful public awareness guerilla marketing campaign in an extremely closed and monitored virtual space like WoW, while displaying an extremely sophisticated understanding of the technology, mechanics & culture surrounding the WoW experience.
The goal of this post is not to celebrate this campaign nor is it to promote the virtues of guerilla marketing per se, but to point to the fact that virtual worlds are not like the real world, and that traditional notions don’t translate literally from one space to the other — but that real culture & commerce is emerging in these spaces, and it’s important to recognize this and try to understand & appreciate this phenomenon.
It would be a major oversight for anyone to believe that virtual worlds are not here to stay or will not play a major role in our future. The sooner we as a society of consumers and professionals engage these worlds and understand their underlying technology, mechanics & culture, the sooner we’ll understand how to navigate and negotiate them in a meaningful way.
