I’ve always had a thing for virtual worlds, and have been fascinated with watching brands and advertisers work their way into these digital replicas of our lives.  WeeWorld’s been dedicated to manifesting channels for self-expression through virtual environments, and they’re finally launching an advertising network around its growing presence.

The new company branch is called the Social Games Advertising network (SGA), granting marketers access to WeeWorld’s expansive network that spans Facebook, standalone websites and mobile apps.  As an engagement platform, brands can create custom campaigns that scale to WeeWorld’s 60 million women and teens, covering various apps and platforms where gamers reside.

At its core, SGA is another take on gamification, a trend that’s seeping into marketing campaigns even outside of social games.  A system of rewards and incentivization, gamification has become a diverse mechanism for further engaging end users.  What I’m finding is that several companies involved in this emerging ad form emphasize value-added points of engagement, aiming for a brand-consumer relationship that’s dually beneficial and anything but forced.

While the space is growing, WeeWorld differentiates itself on two aspects of SGA; customization and scalability.  “To your point about gamification, what really distinguishes us in the market is that we’re customizable, with scale,” Pauline Malcolm-John, Executive Vice President of Sales at WeeWorld, tells me.  “A lot of times, companies have custom options with no scale, and high engagement but little reach.    We give you engagement and reach through customization, and an understanding of how to take a game and integrate the user experience.”

The way SGA sees game integration goes beyond a cross-platform approach.  Finding its way into game play means truly understanding how a game works.  SGA has plenty of practice towards this end, having run its own virtual world at WeeWorld and through Facebook and mobile apps. The WeeWorld team has cultivated a very organic space for brands to partake in, lending to natural interactions with users.

“We really get how to take a social game and disseminate across multiple platforms, and give users a platform for self-expression,” Malcolm-John continues.  “Because people are coming to us for self-expression, we’ve created a very authentic environment for brands.  The brand becomes a tool through which users can express themselves, and more importantly, to connect with friends.  Collaboration is a huge component of our advertising methods.”

Going viral is still a goal many brands strive for, but that can mean a million different things these days.  With new sharing tools, the social and mobile expansion of social networks and the evolution of user-curated influence over content, it’s hard to strip down metrics into something comprehensive enough to justify ad spending or deem a campaign successful.  SGA has created its own standard around social media metrics, essentially converting in-game campaign data into terms and use cases already employed by advertisers and agencies.

During our chat, Malcolm-John often referred to a Warner Bros. promotion offering itself as a good case study for SGA, through which the studio is pushing the upcoming film Red Riding Hood.  The promo captures everything SGA will provide for brands, spanning targeting methods, overall reach and metrics offerings.  In order to truly reach SGA’s network of 60 million gamers, you must first consider their partnership strategy.  For this example, SGA’s team-up with MallWorld, a popular virtual economy app on Facebook, is central to Warner Bros.’ promotional success.  Creating specialized goods for MallWorld players to sell in their personal store fronts, virtual shoppers generate real buzz around the items.  A purchase turns into a Facebook news feed update, as well as a fashion statement.  A virtual retail purchase and download then becomes an advertising impression for metrics purposes.

These are considered earned media impressions at SGA, and this standardization will become a key factor for the ad network moving forward.  “What we’ve done with our metrics is make them more accessible,” Malcolm-John explains.  “When a brand goes back to look at their WeeWorld campaigns, social media metrics don’t always correlate.  We take this earned media and translate it back to standard metrics an agency is already using.  They really appreciate that.”