Marketing using virtual worlds and serious games is well established, but still in its difficult infancy in terms of brands figuring out what works and what doesn't - hence the various high-profile examples of times when it hasn't, particularly within Second Life. However, to say 'virtual worlds don't work for brands', as some media reports have, isn't telling the whole story. With that in mind, One to One Interactive's T=zero research division has released an interesting new report, entitled 'Serious Games for Marketing: Learnings from Corporate and Amateur Efforts in Second Life'.
It looks at successful and less successful brand builds within the virtual world, and compares them to user-built locations to see why the former are often shunned by Second Life residents. The groundswell of anti-corporate culture within the world is clearly one reason, but the report makes an interesting conclusion about how these builds are actually marketed, as ClickZ explains:
“The report finds users tend to market their events predominately within Second Life itself, using billboards and other resources the realm provides to its users. Corporate residents tend to use “out-of-world” marketing channels such as blogs, corporate Web sites, social networking groups, and advertisements.”
I suspect one reason brands don’t market their builds more within Second Life is because they’re scared of seeming to spam residents - they’re nervous of getting it wrong precisely because they haven’t spent enough time in the world themselves, to gauge how it’s done well by users. A recurring theme at virtual worlds conferences is the idea that as a brand preparing to go virtual, you have to first immerse yourself in the world to better understand it - something that backs this up.
Anyway, if you’d like to check out the full report, click here. As ever with reports focusing on Second Life, it would be nice to see a follow-up considering other virtual worlds, and how they might differ.
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