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- Virtual community attracts teens worldwide -
HELSINKI,Finland, 5 th of July - Habbo Hotel has proven to be one of the hottest online destinations for teenagers. Globally Habbo Hotel audience has reached 4 million unique browsers per month. (Source: Nielsen NetRatings, June 2005).
Habbo Hotel is a new kind of youth community rooted in a richly colorful, multi-dimensional virtual world. Since its launch in 2000 Habbo Hotel has taken the world by storm. In addition to its huge numbers of monthly users, over 30 million Habbo characters have been created so far by the users. To date, Habbo Hotel sites have been launched in 16 countries in four continents. Habbo Hotel is developed and operated by Sulake Corporation, a leading interactive entertainment company from Finland.
The attraction of Habbo Hotel is based on the camaraderie of community and the opportunity for self-expression and creativity. Teens join by creating a fully-customized online character persona called a Habbo. From there, users explore the vast hotel where they can chat and make friends with other Habbos, play a wide range of games party and dance by the pool, create and decorate their own fantasy room - the interactivity and options are virtually limitless.
From an advertising perspective, Habbo concept offers one of the most innovative and cost-effective ways to communicate and interact with the teen demographic, build brand loyalty and modify consumer behaviour. Habbo Hotel turns traditional online marketing campaigns into live virtual marketing experiences. The viral marketing effect of these campaigns is multiplied by the fact that these take on a life of their own, outside the Habbo environment, as they flow into myriad fan sites and discussion forums. The companies that have already benefited of this immersive advertising capability of Habbo Hotel are i.e. Coca-Cola, Nike, L'Oreal, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Playstation to name a few.
The viral power of Habbo community was proved with the latest content campaign inside Habbo Hotel, Habbowood Film Challenge. It generated worldwide over 400,000 animated films created by Habbo users. The participants of the challenge had the opportunity to direct their own simple animation clip. The campaign was run in 14 countries in four weeks time during May-June 2005. The success of campaign was phenomenal, since the campaign was endorsed mainly within Habbo Hotel itself, without external advertising.
Moreover, further reinforcing the huge marketing potential of the property, leading licensing industry magazine LICENSE! recently named Habbo Hotel as one its editors' top property picks for 2006 and beyond.
"Habbo Hotel, with its 4 million unique monthly users and over 130 million page impressions, is already a huge youth medium in itself. Habbo is a new kind of youth brand rooted on one of the largest teen communities in the world. One of the key success factors of Habbo is user generated content: the fun games and activities our users create for themselves", says Timo Soininen, CEO of Sulake Corporation.
For more information:
Mr. Teemu Huuhtanen, Executive Vice President, Sulake Corporation, tel: +358 9 681 22 70
Mr. Janne Kouri, Director of Business Development, Sulake Inc., tel: (310) 395-0404
www.sulake.com
www.habbohotel.com
About Sulake:
Sulake Corporation is an interactive entertainment company. It specializes in developing, publishing and distributing multiplayer online communities and games, like Habbo Hotel. Sulake was established 2000, and it has more than doubled its annual revenues each year since that, and this growth is expected to continue during 2005.
The main shareholders in Sulake include Taivas Group, 3i Group plc, Elisa Group and Benchmark Capital followed by the company's founders Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä, Sulake's CEO Timo Soininen and other personnel.
Sulake has localized Habbo Hotel communities in 16 countries on four continents: North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Company headquarters is in Finland and there are Sulake offices in 14 countries. Currently Sulake has more than 200 employees worldwide. |
