After the much acclaimed opening of Visual Sassoon virtual saloon launched last November on HiPiHi - China’s oldest and largest virtual world - we have not seen many users accessing the online environment, neither have we seen big users’ traffic on the virtual saloon.

Nevertheless, there are two new local companies engaged in virtual worlds business, namely NovoKing and UoneNet: the former one has just formally released its virtual platform while the latter is still testing to a closed group of users. Furthermore, both Chinese and Multinational corporations are actively building partnership with these virtual platforms, supposedly to have their own virtual space there.

Apparently, these companies see brand building opportunities in virtual worlds to be exploited in the very near future. Companies such as P&G, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, just to name a few, are planning to brand themselves to young and trendy consumers through these platforms. To use the words of Heidi Wang, senior external relations manager at P&G: "We see HiPiHi as more of a platform to reach young and trendy generation, to provide them with brand new online experiences not just as for advertising but rather as for providing new brand online experience…”

Virtual worlds in China, although still in the very early stage of development, are providing opportunities for virtual brand building. Are you ready to seize the chance and boost your brand value?