I’ve been a strong advocate of virtual worlds for some time now, from the launch of Coke Music years ago (which may be one of the most underappreciated efforts in this space, and one that was far ahead of it time) to the rise of World Of Warcraft. Ideacity’s existing efforts within Second Life are a part of what I beleive is a grand experiment, a virtual R&D platform to test the waters of 3 dimensional branding that isn’t a flash in the pan, but an inevitable future.
The critics are quick to dismiss Second Life in particular, as many brands and advertising agencies jump on “the bright and shiny object” for pr and hype. From this perspective I completely agree, island building and one-off events are not quick hit brand solutions and clearly not a way (yet) to reach a large audience. They could be however, much more effective in the way they are used as part of “blended reality” or better yet multiple touchpoint campaigns. This is experimentation, influencer outreach people not the road to ROI (yet). And ultimately consistent content is the only way to keep your presence worth the lindens.
But I digress.. ;-)
Reporting the best metrics to date of traffic and succes in Second Life, note Wagner James Au’s latest commentary on GigaOm, and stats by Tatero Nino. This ain’t even close to rich in reporting, but its a great start. A “leaderboard” of activity for brands.
Looks like content is king (the independant, well socialized locations) and the brands within Second Life still have a great deal of work to do.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jerry LeBlanc // May 26, 2007 at 5:37 am
400 visits to Dell in a week? Woo-hoo! They should be thriled. Of course, defenders of Second Life as a marketing tool (Second Life Marketing Tools, I think you’re called) consistently leave out something very important — where people in SL ARE going. While the comparison of real world companies with a presence n SL is interesting, it would really put things in perspective to see where the general population of SL hangs out. We all know where it is — the most oft visited sites are sex sites, much like the internet. Dell gets 400 visits in a week and the top SL sex site gets 100,000. 250 times more. The numbers clearly indicate that SLers really don’t have all that much interest in visiting “real world” locations.
2 Andy Hunter // May 26, 2007 at 10:02 am
I agree J, but couldn’t you say the same about the internet in it’s infancy? Besides, the SL sex thing is debatable. Regardless I’m not going to argue with the fact that non-branded content is much more interesting, because it’s maintained and get’s a crowd ;) Let’s just sit back and let see what really hits the fan when the 3d metaverse gets more competition.
3 Joel Greenberg // May 29, 2007 at 11:01 pm
So, Jerry, what you’ve really said is that Second Life reflects the Internet. Would you say that Internet users really don’t have that much interest in visiting locations other than sex sites? Of course not.
But you go right to sex when discussing Second Life. Why?
Many new media are used for sex early in their development. Photography, film, videodisc, videotape, DVD. To dismiss Second Life for going through the same developmental phases as many other successful media misses an opportunity. Whether or not Second Life sticks around or not is debatable, but the one thing it has done as proven the usefulness, reality, and fun of the 3D Internet, or whatever we’ll end up calling it.
Still, there’s much going on from a marketing point of view in Second Life. One place to see it is The Grid Review http://thegridreview.com.
Smaller businesses will derive proportionally more value out of participating in Second Life right now than larger businesses. However, the value for larger businesses is that they will have gained valuable experience in the 3D Internet, so they can hit the ground running when the 3D Internet becomes mainstream. They will also gain valuable experience in Event Marketing, which they can apply to any aspect of their business today. Event marketing is about engagement and Second Life can be used as a proving ground for engaging campaigns that can then be brought into the real world.
4 Tateru Nino // Jun 3, 2007 at 7:10 am
I think what Jerry’s saying is that SL reflects RL (only there’s more sex in RL). :)
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