Engage Expo 2010: TV Brands And Virtual Worlds Panel

The Engage Expo, a two day conference dedicated to the business of virtual worlds, took place at the Javits Center this week. One of the more interesting panels I attended was titled "Television And Online: Giving a Successful TV Brand its Virtual World Legs."
 
Moderating was Amy Pritchard, CEO, Metaverse Mod Squad; and the panelists included Jeffrey Fleishman, Assistant VP, Business Development, Sesame Workshop; Matt Cullen, Marketing Manager, National Football League, Minard Hamilton, CEO, Six Degrees Games and Daniel Buelhoff, Head of Business Development & Community Management, sMeet.
 
One of the points that was stressed the most was the importance of identifying the goals of uniting television programming and virtual worlds. Interactive TV, marketing, audience measurement, revenue generation, brand extension, extension of advertising business models and driving retail sales were cited as most common.
 
Some of the creative possibilities included using virtual worlds to extend the television program's story, to create new characters and to enable fans to participate in the program. Key success elements are the immersion of fans into the narrative, the extension of the story beyond the television program and the flexibility of online content to meet specific goals. The most common business models are subscription, advertising and in-game sales.

Other notable events included keynotes by Will Wright (creator of Spore and The Sims, Founder and Chief Executive of Stupid Fun Club), Lane Merrifield (EVP, Disney Online Studios, Co-Founder and General Manager, Club Penguin), Natalie Hornsby (VP of Marketing, Cepia LLC) and Tor Sirset (VP of Marketing, Girls/Preschool, Bandai America Incorporated).

Stay tuned for more NYCGI coverage of the 2010 Engage Expo.