I recently ran across this case study on the Harvard Business Review website called “Avatar-BasedMarketing”. It caught my eye, of course, because of the use of Second Life in many of the examples used to illustrate points, but also because of the fact that it was written by an author who does not have first-hand experience of a virtual world. While the article was very well researched, there were a few assumptions and misconceptions about our world and our residents that I felt should be commented on.
In Second Life, marketing takes on a whole new outlook which requires the entrepreneur to not just think outside the box, but throw the box away completely. Everything that is taught in business school, while valuable, has to be twisted and carefully applied to a market that is yet undefined. The metaverse is here to stay, but what do we know about it so far? Who is the target market segment? What advertising methods are they most likely to respond to? These are just a few of the questions that the article attempts to answer.
“Whom do your marketing efforts target? The flesh-and-blood Second Life members who gave their credit card numbers to register for the game—or their Second Life avatars residing in the virtual world? Sure, the real-world human controls the real-world wallet. The avatar, though, arguably represents a distinctly different ‘shadow’ consumer, one able to influence its creator’s purchase of real-world products and conceivably make its own real-world purchases in the virtual world. At the least, it may offer insights into its creator’s hidden tastes.”
While the question of avatar versus real-world human is always a hot topic of debate among residents, there is a general consensus about who controls the decisions of every avatar. The human behind the keyboard is in complete control of what their in-world persona does, says and buys, where they go and who they interact with. Granted, being in a virtual reality, the possibilities are compounded exponentially, and the consequences of our actions are different, if not less, than in the real world. This leads to the avatar at times doing or saying things that the human did not expect, because they were acting out of a subconscious desire or emotion rather than reasoned thought. Even so, the human is in control.
Such ideas of the subconscious mind being manifested in this 3-D world are where the infinite possibilities lie. What market researcher hasn’t at one point wished they could tap into the underlying desires and thoughts of their consumer base, instead of relying on the, often censored, feedback of consumer groups, surveys, and questionnaires? So the answer to the question of “to whom do you target the marketing efforts?” is certainly the real-world controller of the avatar. Yes, the one controlling the wallet.
“Given the potential, marketers need to acquaint themselves with the phenomenon of avatars and to consider whether it requires a rethinking of marketing messages and channels. They can draw on the experiences of the handful of pathfinding companies that have begun to explore this realm.”
As both a resident of Second Life for over a year and a real-world marketing professional, I must say that this statement is very dangerous. In this still-unknown world of the metaverse, we cannot simply stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. What if they were wrong? What if their audience was just different enough to make their marketing techniques useless on our own audience? Every new venture into the realm of 3-D metaverse marketing needs to be carefully researched and tailored to those specific goals. The author was more accurate when he wrote the following:
“It’s also crucially important to realize that each virtual world has a different culture and people come to these worlds for a variety of reasons, so a single marketing approach won’t work. Marketers should get to know a world they are thinking about entering.”
Not only is it vital to understand the collective culture of each platform (IE: Second Life, There, The Sims Online, etc.) but also the distinct cultures that exist within each of the platforms. Reminiscent of a fractal, there are sub-cultures in Second Life that in turn have sub-sub-cultures and so on. Simply speaking, the metaverse is a true exercise in direct marketing, and no manner of mass marketing will ever work in such an environment.
In perusing the forums as I do on a daily basis to keep a finger on the pulse of our world, I came across an interesting post from someone relatively new to the community. (Post has been edited for readability and names have been removed.)
“The year is 2010. All your major corporations now have land all throughout SL and use it to advertise. Everywhere you look on the mainland you see advertisements for Coca-Cola, or Nike, or Microsoft's new operating system. They purchase large plots of land all throughout SL, and when you fly over their plot, if you have streaming music playing, all of a sudden you hear someone on the stream chanting "Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike" as if it were some subliminal message they were trying to instill in you just for flying over their land. Or if you are walking around and cross onto their land, suddenly you get a notecard reading, "The New Dell Inspiration Desktop, do you have yours yet?" I fear the mainland will turn from the free place it is today, to these companies monopolizing mainland. They will buy up all the sims, and buy out others with outrageous sums of money that you can’t refuse, and then rent out the land to people, maybe even cheap, but with advertisements everywhere, until mainland loses its excitement.”
While this example is a little over-the-top as far as credibility goes, the writer raises some important issues that are very near to many residents’ hearts. This is our world, we created it. As a member of the movement to bring companies to the metaverse, our team understands and shares the concerns.
The real goal of “real life in Second Life” is to bring together the resources of the RL company with the innovation of Second Life to produce a) Entertainment for the residents in the form of concerts, historical builds, exploratory areas, etc. and b) brand awareness for the company.
One big rule I’ve learned in Marketing and PR is that while massive in-your-face advertising campaigns do work to make the person remember your name; it actually has the opposite effect of relating a negative connotation to your name, making the person less likely to buy from you.
Example: Dell buys a sim where (according to the poster above) you are spammed with billboards, notecards, media commercials, robotic following devices telling you about their latest and greatest laptop. Makes me want to say "Dude I’m getting a....something else... maybe a Gateway...."
On the other hand there is the IVM approach to the same situation. Dell buys a sim, hires in-world architects, builders, scripters and designers, to create an immersive experience that you enjoy spending time in. They have displays of "SLell" computers for you to check out and they have cool features that are only possible in SL, a gigantic model of a desktop that you can walk through and see how the inner workings of your computer work. There is a small kiosk on the side of a pathway that allows you to build a computer from Dell parts and then when you are finished, gives you the option to go to the website and buy the exact same computer that you just built...in real life.
We are not out to make SL a corporate playground. It is still Our World, Our Imagination.
Jeanette DeHoff
(a.k.a. Jeanette Hailey)
