Second chance for marketers in Second Life

By Nigel Hollis

No, this is not a reference to the current metaverse that marketers are going gaga over, it is the title of a blog post I wrote back in 2007. But you know what? I think the marketing issues raised in the post are just as relevant to marketers today as they were then. If you are going to spend your budget on setting up shop in the new metaverse, perhaps you should figure out how your brand will add value to that experience.

Greg Verdino is VP/Emerging Channels at DIGITAS LLC where his job is, in his own words, “advising clients on how to best leverage emerging media and technologies to meet their marketing goals.” In this article Greg makes it clear that he has a problem with Second Life. He says, “As a marketer, it concerns me that many of the Second Life brand integrations stand empty most of the time. But as a Second Life resident, I don’t want to spend time there, either.”

Greg isn’t alone in this view. Marcel de Ruiter devotes a series of posts to his experience with Second Life. He sums up the challenge facing marketers as follows,

“In order to make the most of your company’s presence, you do need to know a lot of SL culture and dos and don’ts in order not to risk ending up on the list of failed experiments…SL might be not be a real free lunch, if one takes into account that “potential customers” in SL may need some attention. Unlike with corporate websites, SL residents are in there for the interaction. Company Islands with no company representatives might not offer a good experience.”

According to Greg, most marketers have not figured out how to offer a good experience yet. Their virtual stores are empty most of the time because they entered the virtual world with unrealistic expectations. Greg’s advises marketers to offer Second Life residents something besides a traditional sales pitch, saying,

“Second Life residents are in control. Instead of spending your marketing dollars to bring them products to buy, think about how you can spend those same dollars to bring them value and earn their attention. Instead of buying massive tracts of land and building your virtual headquarters or retail flagship, think about ways in which your company can enhance the core Second Life experience. Embed your brand into existing well-populated areas, give residents better ways to do the things they are already doing, or even support resident-run businesses.”

In other words, give people a reason to interact with your brand. Why on earth – even a virtual earth – would people want to interact with something that has no relation to their own needs, wants and desires?

Newsflash, all you marketers out there! Most people are passionate about very few brands, if any. And even when they are passionate about a brand, few people prefer spending time with their favorite brand over spending time with people, which, Greg proposes, is why most people are on Second Life in the first place.

The real problem is that this myopia is not limited to Second Life. It is prevalent in the real world, too. Too frequently, marketers make the mistake of viewing the world through the lenses of their own objectives, not the eyes of the people they are hoping to reach. A couple of examples:

If you work in the United States, it is tough to get away from ad agency folks proclaiming that engagement is the key to advertising success. Yet they will happily engage a media agency to transfer their 30-second TV commercial online to interrupt people while they’re browsing. Why? Because they can. Eager to take advantage of a new media channel, they don’t stop to think that the interruption’s irritation factor will be increased tenfold by the fact that consumers expect to be in control online.
Then we have the wonderful example of flogs (“fake blogs,” i.e., blogs which purport to be independent, but are sponsored to sell a product or service). What is it that old school marketers don’t get about the online world? Trust and authenticity are key. Get caught gaming the system and people will turn on you. Wal-Mart and Edelman, Sony and Zipatoni, are just some of the more public debacles out there.

The fundamental problem, I think, is that many marketers and agencies confuse branding with publicity. If Toyota, Telus and American Apparel wanted to generate publicity in the marketing media, then setting up shop in Second Life was a good thing to do. But if those marketers wanted to build their brands, then Greg is probably right that buying an island and setting up shop in Second Life was the wrong move unless they can really engage the residents. Otherwise, as he points out, the most likely response from residents is apathy or worse, antipathy.

Overall, Greg’s post does not make me change my mind about Second Life as an opportunity to experiment. As marketers we should get involved with this phenomenon and use the experience to learn. Based on Greg’s reporting, however, it now seems to me that marketers will be wasting their time if they don’t figure out some better ways to engage people. But look on the bright side. If some companies succeed in the virtual world maybe it will lead to better marketing practice in the real one too.

Am I being too harsh on marketers? Are the examples cited generated by a minority or representative of the majority?