Why Second Life Marketing Is Doomed to Fail
August 30, 2007
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In a post in July, I talked about how Second Life marketing and strategic marketing were not yet aligning. I originally thought that the early adopters hadn’t gotten it right yet and between more users and more savvy marketing techniques, perhaps it could improve.
The more I think about it now, however, the more firmly I believe that marketing in Second Life will never take off. Others are saying it more and more. Here’s why:
- Second Life isn’t built to hold a mass audience in one place. (Only 75 people or so can fit in one place.)
- Second Life doesn’t efficiently allow you to have a one-to-many conversation like most other social media tools, including social networking sites, blogs, wikis and podcasts, do.
- Second Life users don’t like or welcome the marketing efforts going on so far.
- The barriers to using Second Life (downloading the application, setting up an avatar, spending hours figuring out how to use it) will keep it from “tipping” into something the general public (as opposed to a core group of early adopters) will actually do. In other words, SL will not jump the huge chasm between early adopters and mainstream use in the technology adoption learning curve.
- Second Life users “would like to be able to interact more with the brands represented,” but Second Life doesn’t offer very many opportunities to do this.
- Most real products in Second Life are horribly dull as compared to a) fictional products created in SL, b) interacting with them in the real world and c) other fun things to do in SL.
Check out this Scion in Second Life video to see what I mean by that last point:
Most importantly, most of the brands setting up in Second Life are not engaging their customers. This is caused in part by the limitations of Second Life itself and in part by the false hope created by Second Life to marketers. What I mean is that the similarities to our real world made marketers think they could do similar things they were comfortable with, like billboards and product demos. See Coke, the NBA, Wired, CNET, Adidas, Coldwell Banker, Sears…
Social media marketing, however, is (or will be as it matures) about stepping off the pedestal and engaging with people on an even footing. Those trying to justify SL marketing, like Joseph Jaffe, say the right things: “This is not about reach anymore. This is about connecting. It’s about establishing meaningful, impactful conversations.” He’s right, that’s what social media marketing is all about.
Problem is, Second Life is not efficient at “establishing meaningful, impactful conversations” and never will be. I pity how lonely this poor sap helping out the Edwards campaign is going to be. Until a significant overhaul in usability, marketing in Second Life will never generate ROI to justify the expense.
There are lots of companies out there (Link1, Link2) who make money helping companies do this marketing. Heck, we’ll help you if you want to do it anyway. Just know what you’re getting into: an experiment unlikely to generate results that you’ll be proud to share.
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4 Responses to “Why Second Life Marketing Is Doomed to Fail”
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I think you need to do some more research before you lump every company in SL into the same category. Coldwell Banker has been doing a ton of stuff to drive traffic to their HQ that’s outside of their traditional marketing including running contests, giving away virtual furniture, and of course building the virtual listing. And this is all in the past month. Show me what Adidas & Sears have done since they entered to maintain interest in their SL presence?
Otherwise I agree with you, that marketing in SL won’t work if companies don’t find ways to reach the SL user in a way that’s beneficial to the user, not just the company.
Fair point, Dave. I have not looked into what Coldwell Banker is doing on SL recently. And some hotels are having some luck, since they can become a destination for good interactions. Good point. Thanks for reading, and helping me get it right. ~Jim
Good article with points outlining some of the currently most cursed technical limitations that none are to happy to have as roadblocks. I’d like to shine a bit more of a positive light on these tech limits. What is being currently done and long term solutions, all within capabilities of the platform:
“1. Second Life isn’t built to hold a mass audience in one place. (Only 75 people or so can fit in one place.)”
Yes, this is something all developers and managers who plan for such close, centralized high traffic locations, must take into account. Various workarounds exist. Locations can be “Mirrored”, each in it’s own sim (server) (max avatar count per sim, estate sim: 60-80 comfortably, mainland sim: 30-40). Build across four corners of a set of sims (estate sims: ~120, mainland sim: ~100).
Or rely on well established basic tech by distribution of high traffic events for everyone to enjoy by relaying audio streams, in-coming/out-going chat, even video being recorded from the host sim and then streamed to other sims or able to be watched in real-time with a regular video player (nearly unlimited). Such setups have worked well for years allowing thousands of residents to actively participate in real time with grid wide events such as Town Halls and recently as watch live presentations from SLCC07 last weekend.
Long term, a less server intensive presence would be nice to see become a feature. Something like the Active Worlds “Ghost” (limited avatar body with low cost to resources for the hosting machine along with everyone connected) would be nice. Or we may just see virtual remote presence abilities advance far enough to push well as they can now pull-to-show what’s going on.
“2. Second Life doesn’t efficiently allow you to have a one-to-many conversation like most other social media tools, including social networking sites, blogs, wikis and podcasts, do.”
Actually, many are developing and pushing such tools. BlogHUD.com being a great example of such second generation software.
“3. Second Life users don’t like or welcome the marketing efforts going on so far.”
When was the last time you read a story about a small and deeply interconnected community welcoming big business with open arms? Online or off, it’s up to the companies to adapt by learning what works. With the tag of “Your World, Your Imagination” the corps are expect to do the same. Contribute to and help grow the world or you’re just another know nothing leech. Many haven’t, but instead commissioned empty amusement park estates the equivalent of a 3D Web Page with some slider puzzles and free desktop wallpaper. But hey, it was easy to ride the SL Hype a year ago, I’m very glad that’s over. It’s difficult to find one’s individual place in the world when starting out, for corporations to do so along with showing legit ROI, walking the line between contribution and compensations greatly adds to the challenge. One that is being met by a good number of big business ventures. (More below).
“4. The barriers to using Second Life (downloading the application, setting up an avatar, spending hours figuring out how to use it) will keep it from “tipping” into something the general public (as opposed to a core group of early adopters) will actually do. In other words, SL will not jump the huge chasm between early adopters and mainstream use in the technology adoption learning curve.”
Great point. Right now really all we have is the current and beta “viewers”, with this clunky interface and controls all over the place, to interact with the world. Good news is while LL keeps open sourcing various areas of SL, the abilities for third party clients to bring in the way of simplified and alternative interfaces grows. Currently some good working, 2D examples of use are SLeek and more recently AjaxLife. Neither are the kind of things a social media layman would use, but start of being able to embed a SL viewer plug-in in the middle of one’s web page would give the unteched masses a live window into the world.
“5. Second Life users “would like to be able to interact more with the brands represented,” but Second Life doesn’t offer very many opportunities to do this.”
I’m not sure how opportunities are limited by Second Life, either technically or socially. Being that SL’s big drawl is it’s ability to do so much with presenting, interacting and sharing of content in many ways, I’d need more explanation to know what I’m addressing.
“6. Most real products in Second Life are horribly dull as compared to a) fictional products created in SL, b) interacting with them in the real world and c) other fun things to do in SL.”
Ah, but after exploring surreal to limits, nothing looks odder than reality intermixing with the real life impossible and outlandish. I’ll agree a bottle of Coke isn’t much good if I can’t actually drink it, but with virtual commodities such as that discount land rental/purchase sold to me by Coldwell Banker or that new line of vehicles, created by a well established resident in SL, I discovered on Pontiac Motorati Island they make well designed and functional transitions between the worlds. Clothing and other wearable fashions, yes they’ve got some tough challenges against SL fashions, be interesting to see what’s thought up after American Apparel’s recent departure.
“What I mean is that the similarities to our real world made marketers think they could do similar things they were comfortable with, like billboards and product demos. See Coke, the NBA, Wired, CNET, Adidas, Coldwell Banker, Sears…”
Somethings translate well, others really aren’t a hot idea and needed to be totally re-thought or greatly adapted. We’re all early adopters, doesn’t mean results (ROI) and acceptance shouldn’t be important goals already, they’re proof of success, but we’re all still lacking much past data to learn from. With Coldwell Banker, a company heavily involved in SL, that I have first hand experience with as part of the team from Code4Software, the full service development company providing services for Coldwell Banker (CB) within Second life, much they do in real life translates.
Land in Second Life is a much sought after commodity and one of the most costly. As CB provides homes and properties for sale in real life, so they fittingly can and so they do, with some changes, within second life. They also provide rentals, something CB isn’t know for IRL but it’s a popular option in SL for those new and not looking to make a large investment (~1USD) to satisfy their current interests in land management and ownership. So CB also provides rentals that come with a landscaping and home pre-built, presented in various real life (Western) styles, south-western mid-western USA, colonial, cliff side villas, etc. Boring and mundane compared to many residential structures in use, but just as unique of an experience when your next door neighbors turn out to be a Gorean Furry Vampire who invites you over to watch some videos.
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