Business & Games: The Blog

MTV Ovedrive did a story on a recent U2 in SL’s concert (much like the one a few months ago):

“A virtual — and unauthorized — U2 might be the most provocative example, but independent musicians and big-label acts are also getting involved, potentially making multiplayer video game worlds the next frontier of touring. Musicians can channel audio into game worlds and set up characters to be their puppet personas — a way to go on tour without leaving their keyboard, be they the “SL” musician Frogg Marlowe or, if Universal Music’s official plans continue to take shape, Chamillionaire and the rock band Hinder (see “GameFile: Chamillionaire’s Ridin’ Virtual, ‘Saint’s Row’ Has A Surprise, Anti-Game Laws Gain Steam And More”).”

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Ariel Spoonhammer: A barrage of questions to Razor: How did the SL store get approved internally within AA? Why did you opt to sell clothes for what in SL is a significant amount of money instead of giving them away? Do you plan to advertise your store both in RL and SL? Do you think SL is the kind of place where AA’s “risque” ad strategy can go even more “risque”?

Continue reading "Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 5" »

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Ansible Berkman: Susi?

Susi Spicoli: Do you think that we will go beyond traditional marketing: participation in product development, open-source like, which makes traditional marketing obsolete to some extent because consumers are designing their own products? For example, a bank might design (with users)/test their future offering incl branch lay-out, which then already will have a strong in-world following which will spill into the RL. Finally, you might get some great international ideas fertilization (easy in SL), what if Italian customers would give comments and ideas on American Apparel?

Continue reading "Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 4" »

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Ansible Berkman: And now, we already have a few questions lined up. Let’s see what the audience has to say. Divo?

Divo Dapto: My question is what essentially is the difference between the real world and virtual words - from a marketing communications perspective? In other words, what opportunities do virtual worlds offer that real world does not?

Continue reading "Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 3" »

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Ansible Berkman: We shall begin with a small blurb from each panelist on a very broad question I’ll ask them and then the conversation will be open to the audience. Please right-click on me and send me a note if you would like to participate. I’ll hold a queue of individuals and call on you when the person before you has finished “speaking”.

Continue reading "Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 2" »

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Today, Harvard’s Berkman Center hosted a panel discussion titled “Avatar-Based Marketing: What’s the Future of Real-Life Companies Marketing to Second Life Avatars”. The two-hour event took place on Berkman Island in Second Life. Panelists included the following avatars (pictured above, left to right, real names in brackets, info taken from the event’s notecard):

Continue reading "Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 1" »

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The second biggest news of the week after Bill Gates’ retirement was about American Apparel opening a store in Second Life. The store got ink in Forbes, and other mainstream media are sure to follow soon since in-game advertising is suddenly a hot topic.

So, the store is located on the Lerappa sim (that’s “apparel” spelled backwards, see on map). Two floors, floodlights, a terrace. High ceilings to allow comfortable fly-ins.

Winning over the new consumer is what Aimee Weber, one of the store’s creators, does best.

Continue reading "American Apparel’s Store in Second Life: First Impressions" »

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There’s an article over on C|Net by regular virtual worlds writer Daniel Terdiman that’s worth a read. In “Making virtual worlds more lifelike” (Link) Terdiman talks with the folks at PARC studying users inside virtual worlds and video games. From the article:

“It’s incredible the palette of skills you need to design these spaces in the right way,” he said.

Among the skills that would be helpful would be urban planning, sociology and politics, fields of expertise game companies are not brimming with.

Continue reading "When Interactive Isn’t Interacting" »

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Paul Hemp at Harvard Business Review finished his article on avatar-based marketing (they do have long lead times at HBR). Here’s a corresponding podcast and Paul’s interview with Ad Age. The core idea: “Companies spend large sums trying to segment, reach, and influence potential customers. They should think about targeting those customers’ online alter egos, as well.”
Tony Walsh from Clickable Culture commented, and so did Garrett French at Search Engine Lowdown.

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