Branding in Second Life
31st May 2006 by Anders Gronstedt
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!