Second (marketing) Life

Web 2.0 is a bubble, and Second Life is arguably the brightest shiniest example.

Plenty of time has been devoted to the phenomenon from a technology and business perspective.
What's needed is a good debate about the PR and marketing issues raised by companies experimenting with one of the fastest changing new media.

And it just so happens that the 8th National Public Affairs Convention is going to tackle this very issue on Thursday. I will be joined on stage by ABC's head of new media Abigail Thomas and Telstra and AFTRS Second Life projects director Gary Hayes to talk about how valuable Second Life will become to the PR community. Check out the full program here.

But before I do so, what's your take on Second Life? Do we believe their usage statistics (6 million+ users), and do many PR and marketing execs really understand what a fundamental shift in thinking is required to engage with SL inhabitants? Big companies like traditional online marketing because you can buy stuff - ads, sponsorships etc. With SL it seems the stuff you buy is a "space" where you invite people to interact with your brand. Is it working? Why/why not?

Comments

[Simon Sharwood]

I wish I had a cogent opinion on this stuff.
But I am too busy in my First Life, doing things like shopping for the kids, acquiring entertainment etc.
In short, First Life leaves me no time for a Second Life.
And let's see, there are - what? - 20 million of us in First Life in Australia alone. And many of us do not watch commercial TV or commercial radio.
Maybe that's what the marketers need to know?

[Paull Young]

G'day Mark,

Firstly - wish I had a ticket to this conference, the speaker line up and topics look great.

I think Second Life is an extremely exciting case study where we can prepare for the opportunities that will present in the virtual web to come.

For PR and Marketers it is a particularly exciting place - the only boundaries are your imagination.

In saying that - I think very, very few PR/Marketing types have any understanding (or even a desire to really understand) of the world and it's resident.

It's incredibly important to work with the community in any venue - SL is no different.

I've recently spent a fair amount of time working on Converseon's first forray into Second Life, Second Chance Trees (http://www.secondchancetrees.org).

We've built an island in partnership with a reforestation non-profit, Plant It 2020. For 300 Lindens at the island (approx US$1.50) visitors can plant a virtual tree, and in turn a correpsonding tree is planted in endangered rainforest areas in the real world.

In the very early stages of our project we met with a number of long term SL members to work with them and get their ideas on the project. We still continue to work with them and learn from them. We've even got a collection of 'furries' who have adopted the island as their home!

We've been really happy with the success of the project so far with many trees planted. And much of this success has come about from our continual engagement with the community.

Virtual worlds like Second Life have amazing potential for PR and Marketing - but the tricky part is working with the community for mutual benefit, as opposed to clumsily stomping in with a traditional approach.

If you'd like to check out the Second Chance Trees island you can teleport here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Chance%20Trees/139/127/31/

And if you'd like to learn a little more, the media release is here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/second-life/converseon/prweb518283.htm

[Caitlin]

I think the reason that companies advertise or set up shop in Second Life is nothing to do with the value of Second Life as a marketing tool. Instead I believe that it's a simple PR ploy.

It's good for brands to get involved in Second Life because it prompts Old Media to write about them. I don't believe the Second Life audience is valuable enough to warrant the marketing investment in its own right but if it generates stories in the major newspapers and the business press then it's paid off handsomely. Once journalists get bored with writing about Second Life, the level of marketing involvement will drop off dramatically.

I don't have a view on Second Life's claimed audience numbers - though it would be interesting to ask a media buyer what they think. However, we do know that Second Life is tiny, compared with other massive multi-player role-playing games such as World of Warcraft. The difference is that there is far less opportunity for advertising in a rustic fantasy game - you're hardly going to have the Orcs wearing corporate logos and the dragons sponsored by McDonald's.

In-game advertising is going to be massive. It won't replace what TV used to be but nor will anything else - those days are gone. Ads once had to be hard-coded into the game, which meant marketers had to commit 18 months to two years in advance and had to choose a timeless rather than timely message. With broadband penetration now starting to fulfil its early promise, we now have the technology to deliver ads in real time - AND the machine will report back on what ads the user sees so that the games companies can prove the return on investment to the media buyers and marketers. For games with contemporary settings, this could mean billboards and the like. For games with fantasy or far-future settings, it might be more on the level sponsorship and associated game extras.

The other reason it's going to be big is because traditional media channels have fragmented with the onset of the internet and multi-channel TV and personal video recorders (such as Tivo) that let you skp the ads. Advertisers are actively looking for new ways to get their brand message out and in-game advertising appeals because it's a youth audience that tends to watch less TV and games are an engaging environment so it arguably drives stronger brand associations
than more passive media.

None of this has anything to do with Second Life, which is a niche product and, as you say, a bubble. It's not even a useful case study since the big opportunity is not the online massive multi-player role-playing games but dynamic ad serving in all games. In-game advertising is going to be big but the sooner we realise that Second Life does not equal in-game advertising the better.

[Dave]

It's funny when people say they're too busy with their First Life to bother about having a Second Life :) It's a virtual world that just happens to be called Second Life. The naming alone by Linden was a master stroke as it elevated the platform's perceived importance from launch.

Virtual worlds are here to stay.
Some people will never get into them.
Millions will.
Second Life won't be the most popular in 5 years (i currently count WOW as a game, not a virtual world).
Advertising will be in and around these worlds and will face the same challenges it does in every other medium.

[Fantum]

The Second Life phenomenon is simply part of a paradigm predicted by Faith Popcorn(real name!) many years ago.
Kylneth taught of its coming in his 1973(?) series of Mentalics Seminars, in which he predicted that with the breakdown of public confidence in Authority to protect them, people would "withdraw from actual physical presence and use surrogate methods of contact" !!
(Exclamation points mine! This was over 30 years ago)

There is nothing quite so sad - tragic - as a reasonably attractive, well-educated female waxing lyrical about her first "Lesbian experience as both a dom and sub" in Second World, her "second home".
Society is in great trouble - because this is not an "entertainment", it is a symptom and it is perilously close to Withdrawal Syndrome and its ultimate ends.

AS for advertising targets:
These "escapists" are the losers of society - the insecure - the big spenders.

[Jon Beattie]

Second Life only has about 1 million "unique" visitors per month. The 6 million number is not really accurate. As media properties go, it is very small really. There isn't a strong case for ROI in the short term, although costs for advertisers/marketers to participate are not necessarily that high. What you need to understand is Second Life is just the largest of the current virtual worlds and there are many more coming soon. The next generation of virtual worlds will run in the browser rather than having to download client software (a significant barrier to entry for many people), and so I believe will achieve faster growth then SL. This is all a precursor to the much predicted 3D web. So if you get involved now and start to understand the medium you are well poised to be ahead of the game as 3D environments on the WWW become increasingly pervasive.

One interesting stat about SL is that their second biggest audience (after the US of course) is Germany. Don't ask me why.

Personally, I don't find Second Life that engaging for me, but it is not going to go away, and advertisers/marketers can't ignore it.