I've been thinking about currency a lot lately. Namely, things that have no worth, but are given arbitrary worth. I guess that applies to all money - it's just pieces of paper and rounds of metal - but I'm talking about even less concrete things being assigned a price tag. Exhibit A, my post on emotional currency.
Exhibit B. A few days ago, I was driving down Venice Blvd, when I spotted a 7-11 billboard branded with Farmville characters that read, "FREE virtual gift with Iced Coffee Purchase." Free virtual gift? What could possibly be worth the cost of an Iced Coffee? Curious, I read up on the promotion. 7-11 teamed up with the how-is-this-so-popular Zynga game Farmville, co-branding their Slurpee and Iced Coffee cups with wide-eyed animals. Purchasers of said promotional beverages can unlock virtual, 7-11 branded items within the game.
Farmville is no stranger to promotional tie-ins that entice Farmville-fanatic consumers to trade real dollars for virtual ones. Earlier this year, they partnered with The Green Giant food company (a better fit with the farmers, if not with the tweens). The hook was that people who bought Green Giant frozen peas with Farmville packaging could redeem a code for FREE FARM CASH. Like I said, real dollars for virtual moolah.
The dollar amount of digital entities is so fascinating to me. When brands started offering promotional free music downloads, it seemed tame enough. An mp3 is something you can keep in your music library and listen to over and over. But farm cash? Of course, as a Farmville virgin, I can't speak to the importance of farm cash. But the idea of spending green in return for this virtual currency, which can then be used to buy virtual acreage - how mind-bendingly meta!
2 comments:
Virtual currency is a brilliant "trick" to get the masses to part with their money.
Imagine having to pay $5 to buy a wheelbarrow in Farmville (I also have never played, maybe you can't buy a wheelbarrow like that). Sounds like a crappy deal.
With the virtual currency, you make a one-time cash purchase for "virtual money" - an imaginary currency that never has a 1 to 1 relationship to a dollar (e.g. $1 might give you 75 tokens). By only trading the "virtual money" for "virtual objects," it severs the direct connection of real $ to a virtual object.
With virtual money, when the time comes to buy that wheelbarrow you pretty much don't have a feel for for how much real cash you are paying for a stupid wheelbarrow!
Post a Comment