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Temperature in Second Life: Hot, Hot Hot

Oy Vey. Text 100 will become the first PR firm on August 21st in the virtual world of Second Life, according to Second Life Insider.

It's a great stunt, but with PR firms increasingly proving themselves superfluous in the real world, it's hard to imagine that their welcome will be warm in virtual reality. After all, that's where one goes to create an ideal life, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks that wouldn't include press releases.

The alternative marketing opportunity on Second Life is vast, and sure to heat up even further as intrepid firms experiment. But, Second Life residents can be very persnickety about aliens in their world, and have been known to picket or boycott them.

Second Life Insider says:

It is a mistake to be in Second Life and yet not *of* Second Life. Residents can spot an alien at fifty paces.

"Anyone who comes in with a prime purpose of making money or selling things to the residents is, I believe, doomed to failure, or maybe doomed to a hollow shell of the success they could achieve. The trick in SL is to turn any project into a win-win for a company and the residents; not to ask what you can sell to us, but what you can provide that adds to the environment. Quality of content, not hype."

Here come the clueless virtual ad agencies.
The average age of SL residents is early 30s; 40% are female and more than $5 million a month is charged to real-world credit cards for Linden dollars to buy virtual goods. CNET, noting that in-game ads will hit $400 million by 2009, says:

"As with the Web, advertising is not keeping up with the changing, emerging market in video games. For every $50 a month spent on TV advertising per gaming household, only 10 cents is spent on advertisement-supported gaming content."

The digital continent of Second Life covered an area equivalent to 64 acres three years ago but now is more than 20,000 acres in size and growing rapidly, reports the BBC.

via Steve Rubel

Categories: Ad targeting, Advertainment, Clueless ad agencies, Cross Media, Don't Believe the Hype, Events, Global Business, Internet PR, Internet strategy, Marketing Strategy, Media Relations, Public Relations, Reality Marketing, Viral Marketing, Virtual Marketing

BL Ochman | Aug 9 06 1:32 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I hear what you are saying, BL, and I think you are right. We don't go there to replicate what we are doing in RL. We go there because we want to do things we can't do elsewhere. I addressed some of the opportunities here:

http://text100.typepad.com/hypertext/2006/08/text_100_opens_.html
Also, even if many residents in SL spend their time with games, we don't look at SL as a game but the next stage in the development of social networks.

We will also reach out to the residents and hopefully get their interest. It's true, why would they engage with us, if there wasn't anything in there for them? Time will tell. We just got there and haven't opened to the public yet. In the meantime, thanks for your perspective,
Georg

Posted by: Georg Kolb at August 11, 2006 3:50 PM

Wrong way round.
I cannot imagine scream marketing in Second Life but I can imagine relationship building.

Only a marketing person or a PR 0.00001 person could imagine a working press release in either world except as a quaint custom like adding the Seal of State to statutes and keeping statutes on velum.

There is room for quaint in Second Life.

As for Marketing invading Second Life.... yuk!

Posted by: David Phillips at August 13, 2006 2:43 AM

Georg is right - Second Life isn't a "game" - it is a Virtual Social World, and it is also a platform (like the web) and a look into the way all of us will be interfacing with content one day soon.

There is some very important, serious and visionary work being done in Second Life by some very serious, credible people. There is also a lot of fun happening too.

Becoming part of Second Life to understand it is just as vital as being a blogger to understand blogging.

Join our SL Business Communicators meeting next Tuesday - in world. We're getting a tour of the Second Life Library 2.0! All business ommunicators that are curious welcome. You can get details at the SL Business Communicators blog: http://freshtakes.typepad.com/sl_communicators

Posted by: Linda Zimmer at August 17, 2006 12:29 AM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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