Contagious ideas by PSST : spreading 2.0 innovation (editor = jérémy dumont, strategic planner, france)

Irony 2.0

First of all let me apologize for the crappy title! I was maybe hoping for a few more clicks?!
We are living in a world full of paradoxes: when Sao Paulo frees itself from advertising, it seems that 66% of Second Life’s avatars perceive positively the presence of brands in the universe.

Ok, couple of explanations; Cb News (French equivalent of Campaign magazine) together with Reperes have conducted a study among 1085 SL residents on their perception of Real Life brands in this universe.

Have a look at the stats below to discover that actually people are not against brand in SL.

The main reason why people think brand are ‘enriching’ SL are: more realism, enable you to make connection between ‘real life’ and Second Life…

Until this article I though that SL and the digital world in general was more advertising savvy and a bit more cynical as well! This study hasn’t made me change my point of view obviously… I don’t think we were paying to much attention to activism like the SL Liberation Army. The aim of the study is to show relationship between brand and avatars and not what people are actually doing in SL and trying to analyze deeply their behaviour.

So what I want to keep from this research is that people are neither angry nor cynical towards brands they only are towards brands that don’t get it and try too hard… Like Saher said a while ago “Second Life is a metaphor for fantasy” and therefore brands have to start being more imaginative…

by organic frog

Poppy, Apple, Cake

Man, it’s been a busy one. First up - Contagious vsn. 2.0! We’d like to say a big congratulations to our very own Jack Brough, whose daughter Poppy Grace came into the world last Saturday. She is beautiful, and both Mum and baby are doing well. Aaaaah.

Terrifying indication of the power of the blogosphere – Engadget mistakenly reports delays in the iPhone, Apple stocks dip by $4bn. You heard. FOUR BILLION DOLLARS. *shudder*
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcements/my-take-on-engadgets-4-billion-dollar-iphone-mistake-261101.php

Awesome use of the web – this site informing on the dangers of drugs makes the disorientation inherent to drug use a part of the user experience. Get messy here: www.trydrugs.net

The mentalists at Fallon, Gorgeous and Skoda made a car entirely out of cake! It took them four days and 12.5 kg raspberry jam, and was all to prove that the new Fabia is ‘full of lovely stuff’. Check out the maple syrup engine oil by clicking on the image to the right.

Yet another iTunes rival – but this time from someone ideally placed to steal a bite from the Apple. Amazon join the mp3 race: http://daveibsen.typepad.com/5_blogs_before_lunch/2007/05/amazon_to_launc.html

Online branded content from masters of the form, Axe! Click ahead to follow an exciting story showing the Axe effect in full effect. Creative came from BBH New York. Check out issue 11 of the Contagious Magazine & DVD (coming soon) for a full blown Axe case study.
http://letthegamecontinue.com

Best track of the year so far? Do the D.A.N.C.E with Justice: http://hypem.com/search/justice%20extended/1/

Puma ink a deal with LA-based movie producers Meteor Worldwide to see their products placed in at least six movies, from development stage: www.variety.com/article/VR1117964519.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Kill two minutes - Dutch troublemakers 10mg give you the chance to bring a bunny back to life: www.10mg.nl

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/

The rise of planners’ art

Advertising in France has traditionally had a relatively lower status than in the UK or the US because of its repetitive faux pas: it mixes creativity with commerce. So you’ll understand my confusion when, after a few art exhibitions in Paris, I came to the conclusion that there is a definite trend towards more pragmatic art. More of the contemporary art put on a pedestal today could be the work of a creative planner. This year’s Turner prize winner also seems to support this theory.

Last month Paris hosted FIAC – the annual fair of contemporary art - a good place where to test the pulse of the art people are buying today. Over 200 galleries from around the world showed off the artists they represent and champion.

After half an hour at the event I began to seriously question one of those fine theories about the difference between creativity in advertising and that in art. The theory seemed pretty solid even if it was at the end of an Armagnac infested evening with a French creative director. We had concluded that creativity in advertising is relatively functional and outward looking; it has to communicate something precise to a specific audience. In art, on the other hand, creativity can be relatively more abstract and inward focused with not too much worry whether anybody will understand. Interpretation can be left to curators and art critics.

Clearly FIAC 2004 proved this theory to be a load of bollocks. Much of the art at FIAC was shouting out as strong communication, not as abstract experiences. In fact many of these artists seemed to be quite analytical, have great insights behind their creativity, and were extremely innovative in presenting their ideas – definitely one or two ideas to add to a planner’s shed.

Here’s my selection.

My prize for “best ethnographer” goes to Sophie Calle; a French artist who works with photographs and writing. She has spent the last two decades following, peeking into, and outright spying on the lives of strangers; the results illustrate human vulnerability. At FIAC she was exhibiting The Bronx. The work showed the results of stationing herself in a gallery - in the Bronx – and asking some of the strangers that came in to take her to a place of their choice. She recorded it on camera and captured something of their daily lives. She has a great book out (see photo).

The prize for the “sharpest brief” goes without doubt to Vuk Vidor, an artist from Belgrade working in Paris. His mural called ‘Art History’ is a list; on each line he links an artist to his/her cultural impact in three words. He is so efficient that he tackles over 30 in his piece. So for example he writes “Mondrian owns Geometry”, “Pollock owns Drippings”, “Warhol owns Pop”, “Botero owns Fat” and “Munch owns Despair”. However, I felt that a couple of them would need some more precise details in either the ‘Reasons to Believe’ or even the ‘Mandatories’ sections of the brief; like “Gilbert owns George” or “Hirst owns the Pharmacy”.

The prize for the best “dramatisation of an audience” – anybody needs ideas for pitch drama? – goes to Kader Attia - a Parisian artist from Algerian parents. In ‘La Machine à Rêves (Dream Machine)’ he brings to life what living in the north eastern banlieue (suburbs) of Paris is like; he originally did it to send to his relatives living in Algeria. In it a life-size resin figure in athletic clothes contemplates a vending machine dispensing all the things that he dreams of that might help him in his daily life in the West: a U.S. passport, Prozac, "Hallal" liquor (an Islamic oxymoron), and helpful books on how to lose a suburban accent and how to live with a homosexual brother.

I expected more planners’ art at the Palais de Tokyo – the Parisian temple of contemporary art - but was disappointed. HP had rented a big space and had unpacked their Hypegallery; the idea is that artists submit a digital picture or short film which is then printed and hung or projected on to the gallery's walls on HP products. While the art can be on any theme to qualify for display every piece must somehow feature the letters H and P - in that order. There is no theme or direction so the result is a great 3D mood board which can be good stimulatus; the only thing you must remember to bring is your own focus.

May Apollo - the god of the arts - strike me down with an easel, but this week’s Turner Prize 2004 result seems to have backed more planners’ art.

In the weeks before the prize, the four finalists had been criticised for having too much social documentary. "We've gone for substance over shock," said David Thorp, curator of contemporary art at the Henry Moore Foundation, explaining this year's shortlist for the Turner prize, of which he is a jury member. The four shortlisted artists all take a serious look at important subjects: cultural identity, the blurring of fact and fiction and all incorporate film into their work – a long way from the shock Brit Art of the Chapmans, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

Jeremy Deller – the winner - demonstrates how ‘acid house’ is linked to ‘brass bands’ and he explores cultural heritage. In his Memory Bucket 2003 he uses documentary techniques to explore the state of Texas juxtaposing official reports with personal narratives – could this be fantastic stimulus for a brief from the Texas tourist board?

Not surprisingly, with the rise of planners’ art brands have learned how to mingle amongst the works of art without looking too much like they got the wrong party. At FIAC, Armani had created a sound, light and smell installation; Maserati had put its car on a pedestal which strangely seemed to fit as a couple of artists had also used cars as part of their installation; Nicolas Feuillatte – a champagne brand – had gone for a more traditional VIP only exhibition within the exhibition.

So did any of this art have any integrity left? – I hear a few of you ask. Well, there was one installation that seemed to be untainted by commerce and was not trying to communicate anything specific to any audience. My prize for “integrity” goes to “Minouk le poisson peintre” - a video installation of Minouk, a goldfish creating patterns in water where a drop of ink has been dropped in. With its improvised approach and lack of focus on the output of its work this fish might go far in the art world, but he shows no aspirations to become a strategic planner.

By Filipo (Curios Flip)      

Blogger’s code of conduct

Tim O’reilly –the guy who coined the web 2.0 expression– has released a first draft of a blogger’s code of conduct partly due to the rise of cyber bullying (Check out this article about Kathy Sierra’s revelation)

Here are the different topics from the first draft:
We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.
We connect privately before we respond publicly.
When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
We do not allow anonymous comments.
We ignore the trolls.
You can still comment and express you point of view about this first draft on this blog and wiki. Blogging is such a great platform to express ‘anything’ really that we need to care about it and defend it from people who don’t understand what freedom of speech is all about. I really like the way the Internet is establishing its own limits about free speech without conforming anyone.

By Organic Frog

Blogger’s code of conduct - Part II

When checking out Francis Pisani’s blog this morning I’ve discovered that the ‘Blogger’s code of conduct’ post from Tim O’reilly has been the starting point for a new debate.

(Check out the links below to see what people think of this ‘Blogger’s code of conduct’ post.)
Here, here, and here

It isn’t really a new debate; the real debate here is more about freedom of speech on the internet. Not that Tim O’reilly wants to moderate anything, but by creating a new code of conduct he is trying to legislate the blogosphere. Indeed, the patronizing-ish tone of voice he is using (symbolized by the sheriff star) has been the starting point for this debate.

This code of conduct is a great thing on the paper; lots of people are having some wrong behaviour online. However there are some already existing laws on the Internet, the only problem is that the web is such a complex and messy thing that no one is actually able to control it.

Anyway, the interesting thing about Tim O’reilly’s proposition is he is trying to solve a problem by raising the auto regulation: indeed like Agoravox the best way to make changes happen online isn’t necessarily to trust any institution but to act by ourselves.
One last point is that there is no ‘macro blogosphere’ but a myriad of ‘micro blogospheres’. Therefore should each of these communities have their own (tacit) rules, should we create a universal code of ethics on the blogosphere or maybe we shouldn’t be bothered?

What do you think?

By Organic Frog

twitter is like walking to school with your friends

I’ve held off posting about Twitter until now. Mainly ‘cos I didn’t have the time to do it justice.  Click Image to Enlarge

I find Twitter intriguing for a number of reasons, not least because it’s fun watching the debate - from the sidelines it seems pretty polarised… people either love or hate it. Whatever you think about Twitter, the fact that it can stir up such a storm means it’s hit a nerve. :-)

My gut feel is that Twitter has now ‘tipped’ among early adopters at least in the US, so it’s only a matter of time before it spreads even if it morphs along the way. Hitwise did a post about growth in traffic to Twitter recently which was interesting. Take their figures with a grain of salt though… as pointed out in the comments, Hitwise’s counts are limited to only those people who visit the website… and a lot of Twitter use beyond signup - especially in a text-loving market like the UK - happens via mobile which Hitwise don’t track.
weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/2007/03/twitter_stats...

Twitter reminds me a bit of Myspace, not only because of the ‘always on’ ‘broadcast to the world what you’re doing’ spirit of it, but also because of the inanity of much of the stuff that’s written. Just like Myspace though, the inanity is very much in the eye of the beholder. If I knew the person - or was curious about the person (eg: celebrities I like), I think I’d quite enjoy it… to me, it’s only inane when it’s a stranger. As the quote on this slide implies, reading someone’s twitter gives you a different level of insight to their life, more than you’d get from a blog, and perhaps a little less ‘managed’ than Myspace where, after all, profiles are tweaked within an inch of their life. Of course, not everyone necessarily is comfortable with sharing their lives to this extent. As a guy recently wrote in the NYT about his feelings about twitter: “I wasn’t sure that it was good for my intimate circle to know so much about my daily rounds, or healthy for me to tell them”. www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/business/yourmoney/22stream.ht...
I think this is another instance of how you either have the mindset for this sort of thing, or you don’t. For more on this, see www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/411235487/in/set-720575941...

Twitter also reminds me of Myspace in that it’s something I came across early-ish, tried out briefly but then abandoned. Of course, it’s hard to experience twittering to its fullest when no-one else you know is on there (although that’s now changed). But what initially intrigued me about it wasn’t the whole social networking/staying in touch with friends angle that seems to have got the most attention. My interest in it was - and is still - far more selfish. I’m drawn to it for its ‘life blogging’ potential. You see, I’m crap at keeping diaries. I tried it when I was a kid and had many failed attempts - but even those short bursts, lasting usually no more than a week or two, have turned out to be fascinating for me to read back now. They’re little insights into what a grumpy teenager I was (!) but also lovely reminders of good times and other stuff I’d long-forgotten. I’d love to have some of that back, and Twitter is the first service that has come close to being something that I could envisage using to capture those little snippets about what you’re feeling, doing, being intrigued by at any given time, with zero effort.

In terms of the potential value of Twitter for marketers…

Personally, I think Twitter could prove a really usefultool for celebrities - or brands with a clear celebrity/individual spokesperson who truly ‘lives’ the brand… to get their sense of genuine-ness back. Nowadays, celebrity pages on MySpace just aren’t that interesting to me. They’re almost always written by PR people and thus often have a hollow ring (or perhaps I’m just too cynical…). But Twitter could be a new frontier allowing celebrities to ‘get closer’ to their fans with minimal effort beyond sending a few text messages each day. Postings on twitter (or ‘tweets’ to give them their proper name) by their very nature have the potential to come across as more genuine provided the messages really are off-the-cuff and there’s very few of the “I’m going to be at XXX on Friday night, click here for tickets” crass promotional posts. For more about use of twitter by celebrities see here:
www.onlinefandom.com/archives/twitter-gets-the-buzz/

[Sidenote: To give you an example about the kind of (non-tech) celebrity twitter that I’d like to see… years back I was signed up to get Eddie Izzard’s texts. For a while it was really good, I fondly remember a message he sent one Xmas about being just about to tuck into pudding. Even though I know he wasn’t writing to me in particular, it was really sweet to know that he thought of ‘his fans’ enough to spend 30 secs to fling out a message like that on a day he was spending with his family, and it made me smile. Sadly I have looked for Eddie on Twitter to no avail… I live in hope. :-) ]

I’m still thinking through the opportunities beyond this for brands (other than individuals) to get involved in Twitter. Of course, there’s the potential for product placement among the trend-setting twitterati (“I’m just popping into Starbucks, dying for a mocha latte”) but a lot of that will happen organically and people will be able to sniff out when it’s not genuine so you’d have to be really careful. Probably we’ll end up with branded ‘backgrounds’ for your twitter viewer too, just like on IM. There also could be opportunity for sponsorship and offering of syndicated type services which leverage twitter content and extend it. Eg: ‘today’s funniest travel tweet, brought to you by XXX”, which could be delivered not only as a tweet but in an email/SMS/in a banner ad/whatever. But, arranging such things - if you want them to be brilliantly executed on-topic & timely (which they must be to succeed) - has an overhead cost, and thus isn’t as easy to make happen as you might think. You can’t just do it on a whim, it requires up-front planning & a little investment. Given how freaked out some brands seem to still be even about spending on search marketing, the ultimate no-brainer, selling them on doing something significant with twitter, even if it’s a perfect fit, ain’t gonna be easy.

Of course, if there are a few high profile marketing successes in brands using Twitter, there’s a risk it’ll flip and everyone will rush to jump on the bandwagon just like Myspace. The danger is that if this isn’t done sensibly, they’ll destroy the very thing they were trying to tap into… it’s the same danger that all online communities & social networks face. Lovely quote on this: “Every PR organization and marketing arm is leeching onto MySpace like a blood thirsty vampire. Problem is that vampires kill their prey” (see http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/01/03/some_thoughts_o.html).

I’m looking forward to seeing how things pan out. Oh, and giving Twitter another try. :-)

PS: As always, what I've written here are my views only and not necessarily representative of where I work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/483849193/

Simple Marketing for Complex Products

The more complex a decision is, the more thought and deliberation it requires, right? As intuitive and seemingly obvious as that statement seems, new research shows that it’s not true, at least in some kinds of situations.

An article by S. Alexander Haslam in the current Scientific American Mind, I Think, Therefore I Err (subscription), describes work being done by Ap Dijksterhuis of the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam and others on how we make decisions. Surprisingly, simple decisions seem to work out best when made with more thought, while complex decisions seem better when made intuitively.
One study by Dijksterhuis let subjects assess the quality of four hypothetical automobiles using either four or twelve attributes. Those who were given four attributes chose the better quality cars more accurately when they were allowed to think about it, while subjects who were distracted (and who couldn’t deliberate) made worse choices. Surprisingly, though, the results were reversed for the subjects who had more information (12 attributes) - the distracted subjects actually made better choices than the subjects allowed to concentrate on the decision.

Of greater marketing interest, perhaps, is another study by the same group that measured the satisfaction of subjects with purchase decisions they made. The researchers surveyed shoppers leaving two stores, Bijenkorf, which sells clothes, a “simple” product, and IKEA, a seller of “complex” products like furniture. (We wonder if the researchers who found clothing to be a “simple” product were mostly male!) They found that the purchases of simple products were happiest with their decision when they had thought long and hard about the purchase, while the reverse was true for those who bought more complex products. The happiest buyers for the complex products were those who decided with little conscious deliberation. (More details can be found in a BBC article, Sleep on it, decision-makers told.)

The researchers recommend that decision makers leave more complex decisions to the subconscious. I’m not sure completely buy into this strategy. Sometimes, complex products actually require detailed analysis to make a good decision. I’ve been evaluating smart phones, for example - a complex product if there ever was one. Each phone has dozens of important variables - screen size, keyboard type and layout, overall weight, battery life under different conditions, phone size, data connection speed, service availability in different geographic areas, operating system, and many others. The models I’ve looked at or tested have been quite different in many respects, and a unit that excels in one area may be deficient in another. This is truly a complex problem, but careful analysis IS important - buying an expensive phone that proves to be incompatible with my scheduling software, has a difficult-to-use keyboard, or has limited broadband service in a geographic area I frequent, is a prescription for disaster. On the other hand, we’ve all had situations where we’ve devoted way too much thought to buying an item - one thing that I’ve noticed is that doing lots of research may promote buyer’s remorse; even when you make the “best” choice, you maintain awareness of the flaws of the thing you bought and of those areas where a competing item excels.

Let’s turn this around and look at it from neuromarketing point of view - if we accept the idea that some complex decisions are best made without lots of deliberation, how should that affect our marketing? I think it’s a matter of degree - if you are selling a complex product like an automobile, give the customer a simple reason to buy your product. Make the specifications and features available to the consumer, since people like me will want to analyze the details, but don’t lead with six new features or ten reasons to buy the product. A simple message, like “#1 in customer satisfaction” or “more safety features than any car in its class” will go farther to steering the consumer down the intuitive decision path. After all, if the car I’m buying is #1 in customer satisfaction, do I really need to sweat the details? Maybe not.

Simple marketing messages have always been appealing for their clarity and memorability. The flip side of the research, though, is that very simple products, like toothpaste or socks, may do better with more information. Indeed, scanning the toothpaste aisle today reveals products with an almost bewildering array of features. Toothpaste is no longer a simple dental cleaning product - now, products offer various combinations of “whitening,” “tartar control,” “cavity prevention,” and other features. Consumers can zero in on their dental hygiene priorities and find a product that’s a perfect match.

One caution for marketers is that even though the research shows that consumers should make decisions in this manner for best results (in terms of both decision quality and their own satisfaction), it doesn’t mean that people WILL decide this way. It appears that the researchers found no shortage of shoppers who bought simple products impulsively and complex products with a lot of thought. Whether or not these strategies were optimal, that’s how those consumers made their decisions. At best, a marketing campaign may guide the customer toward one strategy or the other, but it can’t really force a customer to decide in a way that he doesnt want to. So, allow for different types of decision makers, whether the product is simple or complicated.

http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/simple-marketing-for-complex-products.htm

Brand Traffic in Second Life

Not so long ago, Ilya featured an awareness study on brands in Second Life.  But as the last time I checked Second Life was still supposed to be about conversations and communities, the real proof for brands lies in "how long do people actually hang out in your wonderful virtual building". 

The slide I attached to this post gives some insight into this (click to enlarge).

It is based on an excellent analysis by Gary Hayes over at Personalise Media where he compared the traffic or "dwell" at a number of key brand locations in the virtual world.  This is a relative measure operated by Linden Labs which creates an index based on the number of visitors and the time they hang out on a piece of land (for a fuller explanation, check out this post by Sue Baskerville.)

Gary also made a nice video compilation of brands in Second Life.

http://blog.futurelab.net/2007/05/brand_traffic_in_second_life.html

50, Chevy, Pepsi

Readers, we have cause for celebration and commiseration. For why, you cry? Well, it’s like this. It’s the 50th anniversary of the Contagious newsletter, which means we’ve brought you a whole bunch of fantastic news stories, campaigns and titbits from around the world in the past year. Hurray! BUT - we’re so hard at work on the rather fantabulous issue 11 of our awesome magazine and DVD that we don’t even have time to send the intern down the shops for a bottle of cheap plonk and some paper hats. Booo! In short – you’re going to have to have the party for us. So raise a glass to your friends at Contagious this week, and think about us beavering away until we go off to the printers, when we will most definitely be raising our own glasses.

Issue 11 hits the stands in the first week of June. If you get it, good. If you don’t, you’re missing out. Email harry@contagiousmagazine.com immediately.

Rounding you up into the big Five-Oh! By far the most interesting thing we’ve read this week is The Observer’s interview with Brit Andrew Keen, the Silicon Valley veteran whose new book, ‘The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy’, is unsurprisingly ruffling a few feathers. Some of the giants of Web 2.0 come in for a slamming including MySpace where, according to Keen, ‘People of like minds congregate to confirm what they want and I don't see that generating new talent or a far-reaching community. MySpace is not a community we should be proud of.' Game. On. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2068107,00.html
Chevy are sending two students cross-country in their Aveo to see if they can make it big in Hollywood. They’ll be posting their experiences and clips of their stand-up attempts en route to the obligatory blog. Whilst we appreciate the sentiment, anything that involves long-distance car travel makes us wish that the manufacturer would at least acknowledge the environmental costs and plant a tree or two. Call us hippies if you like – we’re just saying… www.aveolivinlarge.com

The evolution of online advertising - en garde! www.club-internet.fr/le-duel/

Posh but cheap airline Silverjet (winners at this year’s Condé Nast Traveller’s Awards) promote their ladies-only loos with some exotic clinching. Oh well, at least the lesbians are there for a reason this time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgYDohoobOw

Brand extension-tastic! PepsiCo owned Aquafina has branched out into health and beauty with new Aquafina Advanced Hydration RX, which will use ‘OuSomes’ technology, whatever that is. We feel younger already. www.aquafina.com

Henkel-owned skincare range Tone has created M.I.R.R.O.R.S. (My Instant Reflective Recognition Of my Rockin' Self),  with Energy BBDO, Chicago. Users are invited to upload a passport-style photo of themselves, plus a brief description of how they are feeling that day, and the new online 'reflection' will deliver an uplifting message. www.toneskincare.com/mirrors

Next Monday, 14th – if you’re in London get yourself to the one year anniversary party of Short and Sweet, the most inspiring showcase of global short films, music videos and animation since Antenna went tits up. It’s also a great networking opp, and free to boot. Café 1001, 91 Brick Lane, London. From 7.30 onwards. www.shortandsweet.tv

Kill two minutes of time with Pulp Fiction as reenacted by the Muppets: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSvJwUFI_es

Now bugger off, we’re busy. But we still love you.

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com

Mattel Launches Barbie Girls

Mattel launched Barbie Girls, a "virtual world" that "will allow children to create their own virtual characters, design their own room and try on clothes at a cyber mall." (Forbes.)

In the same article, a company exec is quoted saying it's "the first global online virtual world exclusively for girls". The cool part is that "the doll-inspired handheld portable device will be available in July at an expected retail cost of $59.99. It is designed to unlock even more content and activities on BarbieGirls.com, like adopting a virtual pet and buying clothes using virtual money."

I barely squeezed in for a moment (the site was so overcrowded it wasn't accepting new people all morning). The experience is pretty straightforward; it's somewhere in the neighborhood of Kaneva, Coke Studios and Virtual Laguna Beach but more pink. A few interesting things I noticed:

The virtual town has a cinema that among other Barbie-related things plays spots for Mattel's products.

And you get virtual bucks for watching the spots. The B Bucks can be spent on furniture for your room, accessories, outfits -- that kind of stuff.

Apparently, other Mattel products have promo codes that you can enter to unlock more content.

http://businessandgames.com/blog/2007/05/mattel_launches_barbie_girls.html