Brands Go "GooGoo" For a Second Life

We’ve seen about a dozen major brands set foot into Linden Lab’s Second Life.  Retailer American Apparel, Major League Baseball, Toyota Scion, a handful of major label artists including Duran Duran, and various other ubiquitous brands have gotten a Second Life. For each of these integrations into the virtual world, they achieved quite a bit of PR exposure (more so than most campaigns receive) but there is going to come a time in the very near future where editors at magazines and blogs will want to know more than just about the deployment within a virtual world… they will want to know campaign metrics.

** Note, I'm a huge proponent of metaverse marketing.  I have huge respect for all of the companies listed below and they are doing some things that are bananas.  The point of this post is to get people thinking about the metrics about metaverse marketing and showing them to the press to see what works and what does not.

Many of the integration shops such as Electric Sheep Company, Millions of Us, and Rivers Run Red are fantastic at developing the assets for virtual world integrations but when dealing with advertisers and their agencies, it’s a bit more than just delivering really beautiful and realistic assets. Advertisers are using these metaverses as a way to communicate with their audience, be it a retail shop, a baseball stadium, or automobiles driving around, but what numbers are being derived from these campaigns? If a brand is going to commit $20,000 to developing an in-world integration, how do you know if they recouped that amount back from the campaign? How much value is derived from each integration?  How much awareness did an advertiser attract from the campaign?  Purchase consideration?

With diminishing returns eventually from the PR exposure of in-world campaigns, in-world value creation is going to face increasing pressure. How many people interacted with the store, bought clothing, talked about the brand, viewed the concert, clicked to get more information, etc? This list can go on for pages, but these are all questions that I’d love to wrap my head around when looking at metaverse campaigns.

Different companies are developing ways to measure around their integrations and I’d love to see the data on this.  Are in-world campaigns worth the dollar commitment?  With around 8,000 concurrent residents of Second Life at any given time, and with 250k users logging in within the last 60 days, is this medium worth the five to six figure spend for brand integration?  Lets see the numbers.

Comments

[csven]

Getting those numbers wouldn't be difficult. For example, the Scion model might already be sending data out to an external database; everything from whether it was being used to how long some passing avatar looked at it. There's very little that can't be culled and I suspect (since resident-created code for that sort of thing has long since existed in SL) that these companies are already providing it. I'd not assume, as you apparently are, that they're just making pretty objects.

[Jonathan Cohen]

8,000 users? Well that would explain why I found SL to be pretty much deserted.

The question is one of functionality. What can you really do to 'interact' with these brands in SL that is going to increase your awareness or likelihood to buy? I wonder how similar to real life the Scion is -- that's the promotion I could see working the best.

[csven]

That's 8000 at one time. The total registered is about a half-million and those who've logged in during the past 60 days is a quarter million.

Functionality is something to consider. This is where I think companies need to have an understanding of the medium before they lay out what it is they expect. There are no physical limitations. So instead of going in with a particular mindset, people can either enter with a rigidized concept or they can open up their imagination to possibilities.

I'd recommend the latter. If Chevy had considered what people might do with their Tahoe ad, they might have screened them. If Heinz isn't careful, someone might slip through some custom labels that wind up on YouTube (getting the individual whatever attention it is they desire at the expense of the brand).

So I disagree. Automatically saying it should be like real life to be effective does not necessarily translate to a successful campaign imo. Instead, I think they should have a version where you push a buttom, the wheels fold under and the jets come out. Surprise them. Make them smile. Getting people talking positively about the brand is what's most important; not how faithful the virtual is to the real.

Understanding the consumer - even if they're in a virtual space - and then demonstrating that understanding would increase the parent company's reputation. And reputation is what branding is really all about, isn't it?