Comments on: Guest Post: Building Stronger Communities: Cause Campaigns In Virtual Worlds

By: Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth

Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 04:04:53 +0000

Smart marketing. I haven’t delved into the Meez alliances yet, so thanks for the heads up…

Agree w/Valerie on the goodwashing propensity which is almost as irksome to me as the philanthropic “popularity pleas” (er, ‘contests’) to try to ‘earn’ a pittance.

At first glance it looks like a logical tie-in (e.g. Staples/B2S for kids in NEED) as it DOES empower kids to “Do Something” help out, empathize, and perhaps even seed early philanthropy.

Cause campaigns in VW CAN certainly raise awareness AND even springboard into action (I’d love to hear how ‘virtually’ giving blood played out IRL, what were the objectives of the campaign, etc) as we’re testing some behavioral change components and researching some best practices in the health realm, too…

When seamlessly integrated into the game concept itself (e.g. When Dizzywood ‘seeded’ the concept of planting virtual trees and partnered with ArborDay Fnd to fund real trees as the payoff, or when Polar Bears Int’l teamed for edutainment re: climate chg/eco GoodQuest on Elf Island/now Xeko, etc.) it made sense, and helped kids via informal/participatory learning as well. (agree w/the author that preach-n-teach are the kiss of death)

Even learning via awareness, e.g. Habbo’s Greenpeace eco-UN signatures was no small feat w/50K sigs; and their Matthew Shepard InfoBus leveraged anonymity to teach tolerance and express diversity…so I think there’s plenty of room for growth in this segment if handled well.

Whether corp coffers have kicked in enough $$$ to merit a nonprofit’s declaration of “resounding success” is rarely ever revealed, since there’s a ‘better than nothing’ money game in play.

To me, THAT kind of thinking needs to change on ALL sides in order to make this concept an AUTHENTIC branding win/win “IRL” rather than just a ‘virtual’ goodwashing one. ;-)

@ShapingYouth

By: Ypulse Interview: Hilary Baris, Digital Media & Marketing Director for The Partnership for a Drug-Free America & Pauline Malcolm-John, WeeWorld | Ypulse

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:15:11 +0000

[...] but also to gain some more perspective on virtual worlds in the pro-social space. After our recent guest post inspired mixed responses in comments, I thought Ypulse readers would feel the [...]

By: Valerie Lambert

Valerie Lambert — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:31:32 +0000

A partnering of corporations and non profits certainly has promise; however, the ground rules must be made clear from the onset. When done VERY well, it has the potential to grow into the dream of Muhammad Yunus′ vision of Social Business – http://bit.ly/91wItl – where both the corporate and non profit sector benefit.

Too often, however, companies are taking advantage of non profits′ shortfall these days and engaging in ″partnerships″ where the non profits do a lion′s share of the work, publicity, etc., in exchange for a pittance of a contribution…and the corporation gets to look ″benevolent″ in return – http://bit.ly/d2uR65

By: Stephen - NYC

Stephen - NYC — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:35:45 +0000

Ah, another place for ads. What is it about gaming that companies feel they must ram their ‘messages’ down the throats of gamers? We have ads on tv so the shows are supposedly free (they’re not unless you’re using an over-the-air antenna to watch ‘em). The problem with ads on tv these days is that there are too bloody many of them. Every piece of information has to come with an official sponsor. Not good. I am so fed up with ads that I can’t even stomach the 60-second ads that are shown during the online version of a show.
Advertising on shows (or for that matter, anywhere else) should be a question of not getting lost in the crowd. When there’s 5 minutes of ads during a break, do you think I am going to remember what the first one was? Nope. And if I played video games, do you really think I care about seeing ads in the game? No. The game is not reality, so why should the ads be real?
You want people to donate blood, fine, get out there and spread your message in the real world. For the record, I donate every 4 months (I give red blood cells, so you have to wait twice as long before donating again, but they would need 8 pints of whole blood to get the red blood cells they get from my one donation – everybody wins).
So, remember this, if you want me to remember your message don’t surround it with hundreds of others. And, never, never, never become an ‘official’ whatever of anything nor pay money for the naming rights to a stadium or event or team (a la soccer).

By: Mati

Mati — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:12:37 +0000

Educating, engaging and empowering youth where they are comfortable – a great idea and will serve us all well.