Virtual Social Identity and Consumer Behavior
Sponsored by the Society for Consumer Psychology
The creation and expression of identity (or of multiple identities) in immersive environments is rapidly transforming consumer behavior. The largest adult social networking forum, Second Life, currently has over 10 million registered users worldwide, while Habbo Hotel which targets 13-18 year olds boasts over 80 million registered users and over 7 million unique users each month. Eventually, these CME forums may rival traditional, marketer-sponsored E-commerce sites in terms of their influence on consumer decision-making and product adoption.
These new online platforms generate many fascinating research questions for the advertising and consumer psychology community. Academic and industry speakers both national and international from the fields of marketing, psychology, advertising, communications as well as IT will share some of their cutting edge research.