After the Business Week cover story about Second Life, we don’t have a client that is not exploring the development of a branded attraction in the popular 3-D virtual world. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games are no longer the sole domain of teenage geeks. Second Life is taking the genre mainstream with 205,000 users, growing at a clip of 25,000 new residents a month. The median age of a Second Life resident is 32 and women log 43 percent of the in-game hours. Participants can roam around in its ”metaverse” with their alter ego avatar. They use this representation of themselves to buy land, build virtual homes and businesses, chat with friends, all in the online environment.

Marketers are now racing to explore this opportunity. Needless to say, it’s a balancing act. Wells Fargo is still reeling from the uproar in cyberspace from its ill-fated “Stagecoach Island” experiment. They created a closed environment and was not in tune with the Second Life culture. Wells Fargo’s island has since been transplanted to a competing virtual environment known as Active Worlds. The lesson is clear, any brand has to be in tune with the Second Life culture. If they’re seen as predators who are not one of them, they will be eaten alive.

Who will be the first in your industry with a branded attraction where customers can configure their products, join virtual parties, watch videos and talk to virtual brand ambassadors? The momentum of word-of-mouth will build as people start sending screen shots and post movies from Second Life on You Tube, etc.

The promise of Web 2.0 is coming true faster than imagined. And if you run into Kidcox Goodnight, it’s me and my son. I swear it was not my idea to create a midget in a dress!

I just read Shel Hotz’ post in the Media Commons section and was blown away. Everyone should be aware of this extremely helpful tool, provided free by Shift Communications. They deserve big accolades for this as does Shel for bringing it to our attention. Check it out!

The event I attended the other day in Zürich, Switzerland, did by no means carry the terms “brand” or “branding” in its name. It focused on ethical financial investment, corporate responsibility and sustainable corporate behavior. The event was organized by Dr. Höller Vermögensverwaltung AG , one of the premier European asset management firms, and by its investment ethics research and advisory branch INVERA respectively.

One of the stories that amazed me most was told by the multi-national banana company Chiquita Brands. The presentation given by George Jaksch, Chiquita’s Senior Director Corporate Responsibility & Public Affairs, was in essence primarily a success story about sustainable branding.

The tale goes as follows:

In 1992, Chiquita Brands started to establish norms of sustainable, socially and ecologically responsible behavior. These norms were those of the Rainforest Alliance, a global nonprofit conservation organization with whom the banana company started a cooperation. The Rainforest Alliance’s mission is to protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.

In 1994, Chiquita Brands decided to implement these norms on all Chiquita-owned farms which were located across five countries and wich comprised some 29.000 hectars of cultivated agricultural land. “As a company, we went through tough times in that period,” Jaksch remembers, “and in that context, our investments were questioned more than once. But our then CEO insisted on moving ahead and sticking to our core values—integrity, respect, opportunity and responsibility—, which meant that we started certifying our suppliers as well.”

Within eight years, Chiquita Brands invested some USD 20 Million in improving infrastructure, education, occupational health and safety conditions as well as strengthening community work and so on (to put this investment into perspective, it is worth noting that the company has just reported a First Quarter 2006 Net Income of USD 20 Million). “ These USD 20 Million were probably the best investment ever made in the future of our brand,” says Jaksch. “But before publicizing our achievements, we made sure to create the facts first.”

By now, the Chiquita brand label has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis as the banana lady on the blue label is now contrasted with a tropical frog on a green ribbon symbolizing the sustainability aspect. According to Jaksch “this can truly be called a lasting change in our brand appearance.”

Lessons learned:

To me, this story is a perfect example of how branding is behavior: stick to your core values, live them, make them visible, have them permeate your management system, make progress clearly measurable as a basis for independent verification, and change your brand appearance only after having created the hard facts.

And, above all: start acting—or should I say: changing?—proactively, well before public bashing sets in. There is, of course, no guarantee for success. But in the case of the lady and the frog, chances are good that the story will go on well.