As a parent, I’m well aware of this busy part of the year – it’s back to school time for our kids. Retailers are feeling it too since they’re trying to entice shoppers with their Back to School sales. For this year’s Back to School promotion, retailing giant Walmart is catering to our youngsters with virtual worlds and Miley Cyrus, a busy teen celebrity that’s a singer (well, you be the judge of that) and television actress in a show called Hannah Montana.

Miley is selling gear from her show Hannah Montana including a line of clothes and accessories, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. To promote the gear, Walmart has created a Hannah Montana virtual world where you can design an avatar, or a 3D representation of you, that can dress up in Hannah Montana clothes. Your avatar can also decorate that room with a Hannah Montana bedspread, posters, etc.

Walmart is driving people to the site via a print ad in their weekly circular — the ad contains a link to the virtual world site. They also created a micro-site where you can get Miley (aka Hannah) to call your child and remind them to go back-to-school shopping at Walmart.

So can this promotion be a success for Walmart?

There are indicators that virtual worlds are more than just a game. For starters, virtual world proponents have argued that these environments mimic real life. This argument is backed up by virtual world gamers reporting that they have real-world emotions or ties when they engage in virtual activities, such as a virtual marriage. And beyond emotions, the exposure to a virtual environment has influenced the purchasing decision of online shoppers. In the case of Land’s End, the integration of a virtual dressing room into their eCommerce engine demonstrated a 13% improvement in the shopping cart totals and a 26% increase in online purchases.

So while Walmart’s social media experiment two years ago never did more than generate buzz for the company, their foray into a virtual world with the backing of a teen celebrity has the makings of a successful marking campaign.