So here is the story, I went searching for advertisements in the virtual world There.com the same way I do with most of the other worlds I’ve been assigned to find marketing and advertising in. My process is this: I go through the tutorial, I search the starting area, and then I talk to people to learn if anyone is aware of ads off the top of their heads. Then I navigate the rest of the world on my own in search of any signs of in-world branding.

Finding advertising in There.com took an especially long time since the world is actually quite large. However, as you’ll see, what I found in my exploration of the world is a blend of real advertising and user-generated product placement.

The Tower is a virtual world club where bands play and people come to listen, dance, and talk. This is just one example of a band that was playing in-world while I was researching.

I found a bunch of people wearing X-Games t-shirts and even came across X-Games-branded hoverboards. Are they holding their own version of the X-Games in There.com? Or, are they just using the game to promote them?

This was one of the arcades I came across. I did notice that the names on the video games were changed, likely to avoid copyright infringement.

Advertisements on benches are common in real life (or RL, as we say in virtual world speak). Apparently they’re also popular in There.com.

Yes, this is a Playstation 2 on top of the Television. The Sony logo on the side is missing (replaced by some illegible logo) - but it’s clear as day that’s what it is.

Again, changing the name slightly on the product, this can of “RAID” bug killer, has been modified to R.AID bug killer. (Oh, and just in case you were wondering … my avatar is wearing a fox costume and a jetpack … hey, an avatars gotta have some fun.)

It drives me crazy how much the product names/logos change in this world. But, hey, it’s still advertising a product. Here I am actually behind the counter of a bar looking at a Carona (Corona) sign.

There.com is a very large virtual space. In fact, as I was wrapping up my research I discovered that there were four or five other islands that I didn’t even know about.

Still, as I continued to explore I kept finding more and more examples of advertising in-world. And, since much of it was user-manufactured, there are real opportunities for the actual brands to come in with legitimate branding.