The Hottest Thing in Kids Marketing? Imitating Webkinz

Following on the heels of this weekends post about the BBC launching Adventure Rock. AdAge has a run down of the virtual worlds that are going after this younger demographic., especial with a female slant.

It’s not alone. Mattel launched a “Barbie Girls” site in April that now has 5.5 million registered users. The Barbie Girls doll-shape MP3-player/flash-drive hybrid hit stores in August, and users are spending about 30 minutes per visit on the site, Mattel said, although it declined to give traffic figures. The device hooks users into the free site and unlocks additional features — more clothes and such. And Disney paid $700 million for Club Penguin in August, a site that had about 1.6 million monthly users at the time. Webkinz, owned by Ganz, has about 1 million registered users. MGA’s user data weren’t immediately available, but its director of online development, Lisa Sirlin, said children are continuously getting web savvy at earlier ages.

Younge people are getting online earlier and earlier these days. A few recent studies have shown that females go online to connect and socialize, which is what all these virtual communities are about at the end of the day for the end users. Businesses do it to make money and grow their brand, which is another post all together.

[Via AdAge]