The company categorizes its users into five different segments - traditionals, achievers, creatives, rebels and loners. How users play Habbo differs across gender lines and location. That's really a powerful tool for us when we can talk to our partners." They send us so many different layouts, whether it's an iPod promotion or what have you. Our users keep sending us ideas on different marketing campaigns that they would like to see inside Habbo. But in keeping true to the Habbo world, the company makes sure that advertisers are the kinds of brand that their target demographic of teens want to see. This allows advertisers like Nike to sell digital shoes or Coke and Pepsi to sell soda to Habbo users.
GAMES LIKE NEOPETS AND HABBO OFFLINE
As Habbo grew, the company struck deals with major advertisers to cross-promote each other's brands offline and in the Habbo world, respectively. For Habbo, 75% to 80% of new users come from existing users inviting their friends to join. When it comes to building online communities, it seems one thing is universally true. need to pre-approve as much as the studio head at Lionsgate," adds Huuhtanen. "We think this approach is really a unique one, but in my mind it's the only way to build something on top of the existing online community. Huuhtanen added, "We've known from the beginning that Habbo is owned by the user So we knew that whatever we tried to do with animation needed to be approved by the community." From this idea, Habbo commissioned different Habbo shorts to be made with various storylines and styles, allowing users to vote on what they like and don't like. Starting about three years prior, the company began noticing Habbo users creating self-produced Habbo-themed animated shorts and posting them on their fan sites, which are visited by other Habbo users.
However, Huuhtanen added that the move into offline animated content came from the users directly. Teemu Huuhtanen, president of North America, for Habbo and parent company, Sulake, said that the company always knew that the unique Habbo brand would present licensing opportunities in various areas. However, with its recent deal with Lionsgate to produce a Habbo feature, the company has gone to outside animation companies to help with those productions. Most of Habbo company's profits come from the end users, however, advertising sales and sponsorship have grown in the past two years from around 5% of their total revenue to nearly 20%.įor its games and animated shorts, Habbo employs animators and game designers internally. The in-game economy allows users to buy Habbo Coins to purchase virtual products like furniture for their rooms, as well as play mini-games. A different hotel has been designed for various regions of the world. In the Habbo world, users can create their Habbo and visit the friends' rooms in the Habbo Hotel for free. The future in this entertainment sector looks limitless and I talked with some of the players to find out more about what drives their business, as well as where they think the industry is headed. Newer sites like Urbaniacs and Club Penguin are popping up with fun and unique twists to online communities. Leading sites like Neopets and Habbo have millions of visitors monthly with top advertisers wanting to join the party. Places like Second Life allow users to live out fantasies in a virtual world that may be impossible in real life. In the world of animation, immersive Web communities serve as mini-worlds online where people from all parts of the globe can talk to friends and make new ones. Community sites like MySpace are exploding on the Net and serve as attractive destinations for advertisers because they contain a captive teen audience.
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