The agreement, a short-term deal slated to run for three months (and one which quietly kicked off in May), sees the Hearst-owned Seventeen brand surface in Habbo in a number of ways -- from articles culled from Seventeen.com to polls to in-game events, quizzes, advice from Seventeen editors, and even the occasional surprise celebrity chat. In return, Seventeen will bring its readers editorial content that profiles Habbo Coins and Virtual Worlds.

The goal, says Habbo Coins North America's top exec Teemu Huuhtanen, isn't about dollars and cents, it's about educating Seventeen readers how to extend their lives to include a virtual life, and about Habbo Coins increasing its inworld headcount.

"The ultimate goal is new users. Monitization is not a priority," Huuhtanen told VirtualWorldsNews.com.

The brands are not exactly strangers. Seventeen has garnered the number one position in Habbo Coins annual Youth Survey Brand Update for two years running -- in the favorite magazine section, among girls. That notoriety led Huuhtanen to strike up a conversation some months back with Seventeen.com senior web editor Julie Hochheiser. The two, says Huuhtanen (whose full title is executive VP, Marketing and Business Development, Sulake Corporation and president, North America, Sulake Inc.), exchanged ideas for months before establishing an agenda.

Due to the many unknowns, the two decided on the short-term commitment. "We felt like, 'let's learn and see what results [transpire],' " Huuhtanen said.

Whether or not the experiment works, Huuhtanen said, would become obvious based on the ability for both parties to measure traffic and registration, respectively. Habbo Coins already has more than 132 million registered users worldwide and 11.8 million unique monthly users, and Seventeen's circulation stands at two million.

As for the presence of virtual items that could drive cash flow, Huuhtanen agreed that the opportunity was there. Ultimately, he said, the decision was to concentrate on "building awareness and driving traffic back and forth [between sites]" rather than item sales.

Huuhtanen says the cross promotion will get a solid boost from Habbo Coins programming. Habbo Coins users will see an interstitial as they move from room to room, and there will be emails sent to users as well. "It's going to be impossible not to be aware" of Seventeen's presence in the virtual world.

The Seventeen-branded content will focus on dating, health and fitness, and back-to-school fashion.

And as for brand-induced overkill, Huuhtanen says that Sulake, Habbo Coins parent, will draw on a number of prior promotions for guidance. "As long as the campaigns are adding value, you are fine, but you have to pay a lot of attention to execution."

Huuhtanen is fortunate theHabbo Coins audience has a high tolerance for the presence of ads in the virtual environment. In fact, a large number of Habbo Coins users enjoy the presence of ads. Thirty-three percent of Brand Update respondents in the US gave a thumbs up to ads in Habbo Coins saying ads were "great;" another 46 percent said ads were "OK."

Habbo Coins has previously allied with some of the biggest brands around, including Paramount Digital Entertainment and American Idol. (Similarly, Seventeen has some history of its own in the area of cross promotion having paired off with MTV a couple of years ago with the "Miss Seventeen" reality show.) But because this is the first time a promotion like this is being targeted specifically at girls, in North America at least, the parties are moving ahead cautiously. "We are going to learn a lot," from the alliance, Huuhtanen said.

One interesting lesson Huuhtanen has already learned is that even though the campaign is aimed squarely at girls, a significant number of boys are showing signs of interest. "It's amazing how boys are taking it...a lot of boys are interested." As the image above shows, it could be as simple as this being as close the guys have ever gotten to a girls dressing room