Marketing, social Web-style

Parents may want to know what "brand integration" means. It's the buzzword social-networking companies use when they talk about how they're going to make money on the millions of profiles and blogs on their sites ("going to" because, despite their enormous popularity, few of these sites have really figured out profitability). The kid version of "brand integration," for example at Neopets.com, is also called "immersive advertising," as in a game sponsored by Lucky Charms cereal. Two clever examples in teen social networking are Tagged.com's advertiser-sponsored "tags," which MediaPost.com describe as "graphic icons that kids can trade à la online friendship bracelets." A Tagged executive likens them to logos on clothing – they tell friends you think this brand is cool. Bebo.com "is working with advertisers to sponsor home pages' 'skins' [such as a Web page's "wallpaper" and other elements that give it a certain look and feel] and other branded content so kids who are attracted to a sponsor 'will make it their own, and spread it virally, becoming brand advocates'," MediaPost quotes a Bebo executive as saying. Scheinman says. From T-shirt statements to Web page ones. Marketing is increasingly about self-expression, and social networking and virtual worlds/online games are capitalizing on that reality (see also "Embellishing their pages").