Laguna Beach episodes debute in Virtual World first

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the presence of brands in virtual worlds. The more I’ve dug into it, the more I’ve learned that savvy marketers are starting to use virtual worlds to debut their productions and products first, before introducing in the “real” world.

MediaPost.com reports today:

‘Laguna Beach’ Goes Online
MTV THIS WEEKEND WILL MAKE 10 episodes of “Laguna Beach” available online. MTV also will start debuting new episodes of the program on Virtual Laguna Beach–an online community site described by MTV as a “social networking virtual world”–two days before their air dates.

It’s interesting for marketers from several perspectives:

• Use the advance screening of episodes as an incentive to drive trial and use of Virtual Laguna Beach
• Use the virtual world to gauge reactions to the episodes, like a test audience, and possibly adjust before national broadcast
• Reach elusive teens and deliver video on demand content, where they want, when they want.

-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.