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Webkinz.com, a popular virtual world for the elementary school set, has begun to accept advertising. The previously ad-free world has movie ads on the right-hand side of the page.
Webkinz.com saw 7.29 million unique visitors in October; its closest competitor, Club Penguin from Disney, had 3.88 million, writes The New York Times.
Webkinz sells stuffed animals and trinkets that have access codes hidden inside their packaging. Children use those codes to “adopt” a pet online, where they can then furnish virtual bedrooms, dress their pet, chat with and visit friends, and play games.
The site began running ads for Bee Movie and Alvin and the Chipmunks in October. The site also ran tie-ins for Bee Movie, with children able to use their “Kinz Cash” to buy things like bee costumes to put on their virtual pets.
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s director, Susan Linn, says that one of the reasons parents buy Webkinz for their children is the expectation that the site will be ad-free. “It’s disappointing that the site is choosing to maximize revenue at the expense of children,” she is quoted as saying.
After the Boston Group and The New York Times tried to contact Webkinz creator Ganz on Wednesday, the ads disappeared from the site, according to the article. Today, however, the Alvin and the Chipmunks ad is back.
Webkinz stuffed animals, which used to be found solely in small specialty stores, can now be found at mass retailers like KB Toys. Lutz Muller, owner of the Klosters Trading Corporation retail research firm, says that Ganz may be positioning Webkinz as a mass market product in order to sell the brand to a large corporation.
Traffic to Webkinz.com grew 800 percent in the last year.
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