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HipChicas.com Targets Tween Latinas with
Eco-Friendly Virtual World
Tameka Kee
MediaPost
September 30, 2008
Hip Venture Co. is the latest company to enter the
crowded virtual worlds market for kids, tweens and teens
(KT&T) with the imminent launch of HipChicas.com. But
what separates this Flash-based virtual community from
some of its competitors is its focus on socially
conscious, young Latinas, and its "eco-friendly" stance,
differentiators that analysts say may help it stand out
from the pack.
HipChicas.com members can create and customize avatars
and living spaces, as well as purchase items with
virtual currency called Hip Change. Girls can chat in
English, Spanish, Portuguese or French, with an
automatic translator that displays the appropriate
language for each user.
The world is modeled after real locations in North and
South America, including cities like Miami and New York,
as well as habitats like the Everglades and the Amazon.
Girls learn that their actions directly affect the
environment through games and challenges. Adding plants
and cleaning up a habitat, for example, will cause a
native endangered species to flourish.
According to Lazaro Fuentes, founder and CEO of Hip
Venture Co., the creative team spent about a year
figuring out how to help girls understand the connection
between their everyday activities and the environment
without being "preachy." The plan was also to develop a
world that would be popular with girls, their parents
and potential brand sponsors.
As it stands, brands can sponsor in-world games, but the
messages get sent to parents, not the girls themselves.
A game like "Lights Out," for example, that focused on
energy conservation, would likely be sponsored by a home
furnishings or hardware store shilling fluorescent
bulbs.
"We felt that there was a need for content that kids
would like and parents would approve of," Fuentes said.
"It's as if somewhere along the line, someone decided
that being hip meant that girls had to dress or act
inappropriately, or had to fit into a specific mold and
that their only interests are picking hair colors or
shopping for clothes. They are far more than that and
are looking for content that gets them; a higher level
of engagement. These are kids that want to save the
world, be in a band and start a blog all in one day."
Fuentes said that though the world was designed from a
Latina-centric perspective, HipChicas.com would likely
have multi-ethnic appeal, much like Nickelodeon's Dora
the Explorer property. "The girls that were five when
they first started watching Dora the Explorer in 2000
are thirteen now," Fuentes said. "And they've already
had an unprecedented amount of exposure to Latin-themed
content."
Yuanzhe (Michael) Cai, director of digital media and
gaming at Parks Associates, said that the industry could
expect to see more demo- or ethnically-targeted virtual
worlds emerge. "Virtual worlds are evolving much in the
way that social networks evolved," Cai said. "At first
you had these mega, super-social hubs like MySpace that
targeted everybody, and now there are a bunch of niche
networks targeting people with business interests, baby
boomers, Asians and African-Americans. Targeting a
specific ethnicity can definitely be a way for a
property to differentiate itself from the rest." |
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