Virtual Scions, Real Fun

You know about Gaia Online, right? No? Well, you at least know about anime, right? No?

No worries, I didn’t know about either of these phenomenons either.

So stick with me for a minute and I’ll provide definitions, and then we’ll get to why Gaia Online  – and other sites like it - are important to Scion.

"Anime" refers to a style of animation used in Japan. With a look and feel all its own, it’s incredibly popular, especially with young people.

Gaia Online is a virtual community done in the anime style. It is among the largest forums on the Internet, and reputedly gets more than a million posts daily and nearly three million unique users each month.

Participants can create not only their own avatar (an animated representation of themselves) for the site, they also can create a virtual home for that avatar, and furnish that home, using a virtual currency called Gaia Gold. They can also use something called Gaia Cash, which can be purchased at retail stores, but that’s another story.

The deal is, a virtual resident of a virtual world needs a set of virtual wheels, and that’s where Scion enters the picture. Those who visit Gaia Online have an opportunity to buy, customize and even race virtual Scion tCs, xBs and xDs.

Think we’re kidding, eh? No way. You can win your own stash of Gaia Gold by successfully negotiating a virtual race track. Of course, you have to deal with virtual obstacles such cows and spaceships – you know, the usual stuff you find on race tracks. But that shouldn’t be difficult, should it?

Scion launched on Gaia in June 2007. In the first hour, the site sold more than 28,000 Scions – uh, make that virtual Scions. Over the course of the next six months, that number grew to more than 600,000.

Obviously, something’s going on here. So Scion just introduced a contest that gives Gaia members an opportunity to design virtual accessories for their cars. The accessory that wins the contest will become a permanent part of the list of accessories that are available to Scion enthusiasts on Gaia. Scion and Gaia Online will announce the winner on March 6.

So instead of art imitating life, what we have here is a case of art becoming a real part of the virtual world.

As it happens, Gaia Online isn’t the only online community with which Scion is associated. Scion also can be found on Second Life, on There.com, and on the educational site Whyville.net. Both of these are sites frequented by young trendsetters, people not interested in what’s going on in the mainstream.

Scion works directly with each world, since each has a different audience, look and focus, to provide a unique experience from which visitors can benefit. For example, users can learn how a car works in Whyville, take Scion vehicle customization classes in Second Life or hang out in a club setting with other avatars in a larger-than-life xBs, xDs and tCs in There.com.

Scion knows this works because it reviews visitor buzz, level of engagement and visits as it seeks to provide a positive brand experience to virtual-world residents.

Pretty interesting, the roads down which the Internet is taking us, isn’t it?

~ Contributed by Jon F. Thompson, Corporate Communications