Early virtual world Worlds.com has announced that it is to create a 3D environment to promote hip hop artist Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, in collaboration with PAID, a celebrity services company. Worlds.com will handle the technical creation of the world, and PAID will facilitate the sale of a series of virtual clothes and accessories which can be purchased using its ecommerce system. This will all be integrated into the rapper's existing website, Me-DMC.com.
It will be interesting to see what is developed; at present only the deal has been announced. However, at the moment the proposition doesn't sound very exciting. I am sceptical about the chance that an isolated virtual world, with its only brand-specific feature being the purchase of virtual goods, has for success. A higher profile brand with a wildly popular website might be able to make this work, but according to all the online traffic estimating tools, Me-DMC.com has very little traffic. This effort would appear to be yet another example of the 'build it, and they will come' approach to virtual worlds marketing which has been shown to fail so conclusively.
It's not as if a music brand is short of choices for innovative promotion online. How about a virtual world for rappers, with regular organised contests and free music to active users? Or thinking outside the virtual worlds space, how about an online tool to create a simple hip hop backing track? Or a Facebook application to have a rapping contest with your friends, or discover new hip hop music? None of these options need be particularly expensive, and are almost guaranteed to give a better return on investment than what I suspect is a doomed project. All of this with the caveat that the actual virtual world has yet to be released.
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