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As promised last week, Nissan has just unveiled a Second Life extension of its campaign for Sentra. Here’s the location’s SL URL, and here are more details from Giff at Electric Sheep. I spent a few minutes on the sim before it went down as developers were apparently adding final touches, but here’s what I saw:
A giant vending machine with very realistic action. The machine dispenses Sentras.
Jeff Barr, web services evangelist at Amazon: “You can imagine a Second Life build where you have a concert or a musician that’s just done a live performance, or maybe an author who has done a book reading. Just as you’d walk out of a venue
in real life and buy a book or a T-shirt or a CD, now you have the same ability in the virtual world — it’s contextual commerce. People love to do things that stay within the metaphor. So if you can say in character and if you’re essentially doing your shopping in avatar scale, that seems to maintain the quality of the experience.”
– Reuters
Earlier:
Harvard Business Review: Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0?
“Nielsen Media Research on Wednesday announced an electronic rating service to track who is playing what game. The data will be collected from the same 10,000 sample households used for Nielsen’s television ratings. Subscribers such as advertisers and video game makers will get a weekly ratings reports and charts showing the most popular games, as well as information about the type of console and the genre of the game. Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Nielsen’s wireless and interactive services division, said he expects the system will drive advertising investment and help convert video game advertising from discretionary to essential.”
– AP, press release
“A Virtual World but Real Money“, Richard Siklos, NY Times, October 19, 2006.
NY Times does a large article on Second Life, which just passed the 1M registrations mark. Nothing you don’t already know if you follow the space, but here’s a nice thought that we come across more and more often:
“The sudden rush of real companies into so-called virtual worlds mirrors the evolution of the Internet itself, which moved beyond an educational and research network in the 1990’s to become a commercial proposition — but not without complaints from some quarters that the medium’s purity would be lost.”
“Meanwhile, Nissan is starting a promotion for its Sentra that allows Second Lifers to get their own digital versions of the car out of a gigantic vending machine and drive them around. Much of this is likely to be covered for the outside world by the news outlets CNET and Reuters, which now have reporters embedded full-time in the virtual realm.”
International Herald Tribune, “Virtual worlds are moving toward commercial reality“, Richard Siklos, October 18, 2006
Via a post on Terra Nova (Link) comes word of Nick Yee’s relatively recent talk at Stanford titled “The Blurring Boundaries of Play: Labor, Genocide, and Addiction” (Link to audio and video). It’s an excellent lecture and well worth the time to watch it. His point that many people play MMO’s because they like the structured environment might explain why so many people are turned off by an open-ended virtual world like Second Life. I may not understand the mindset, but it sounds like an opportunity to me.
Original post: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1060
“Nivea Does Video Game Tie-In with ‘Splinter Cell’” October 16, Enid Burns, ClickZ. The game is brand new, so no good screenshots yet. Quotes from the article:
“Nivea’s first foray into in-game product placement injects its products into the covert world of Sam Fisher, the spy in UbiSoft’s “Splinter Cell: Double Agent.” The media buy includes product integration, static and dynamic placements, plus out-of-game ads. The marketing program features products from both Nivea and its partner in shaving, Philips Norelco, in a game space hotel bathroom. Beiersdorf agency RDA International conceived the creative to integrate with the game’s themes.
The in-game media buy […] extends across online and offline channels. Nivea created a microsite, thegoodside.com to which all ads in the game and the Internet link. It offers information on Nivea products; Philips Norelco products using Nivea creams[.]
Offline tie-ins include inserts in each retail box of the game which hypes the sweepstakes. The company also bought a print ad in the game’s strategy guide published by Prima. The creative features a bottle of after shave made to look like a hand grenade with the message ‘Balms away.’”
I had problems with posting pictures on this blog over the weekend, so I had to move my write-ups on SL’s new branded spaces over to AdLab. Here’s what you missed:
Judging by the growing number of media clippings on the subject, I’m afraid in-game ads are turning into the next shiny thing.
“Agency Avatars,” AdWeek, October 9, 2006, Eleftheria Parpis. Quote from Leo’s chief creator Mark Tutssel: “This is right on the edge of a new space.”
“Virtual Worlds: The Next Realm in Advertising?” Brand Channel, Bill Nissim, undated (Sept 2006?)
“Video Games Now a Social Experience,” Ad Age, Gavin O’Malley, October 5, 2006
“Leo Burnett Buys Space in Virtual World,” Ad Age, Jeremy Mullman, September 28, 2006
“Advergaming: You Got It,” Business Week, David Radd, October 10, 2006
The title here is a bit too dramatic, but it does illustrate a potentially much larger problem than the glitch at the Sun’s new pavilion (it opened today in SL with a press conference; Millions of Us has more details and pics). After everybody had left, someone dropped a couple of betting balls on the premises, apparently counting on the post-event traffic. Earlier, Second Life Liberation Army picketed the American Apparel store to attract attention to its cause.
Wind-up Records (the label that produces Evanescence, I was glad to find out) and Millions of Us are running an in-world promo for the label’s band Seether. From the press release: “Members of the Second Life community can visit the Seether venue where they can submit virtual t-shirt designs. The band will select the winning design, print real versions of the t-shirt and make them available in their official band merchandise store for fans in the real world to enjoy. All members of Second Life who travel to the virtual Seether venue will get a special coupon code for the band’s merchandise store and all contest entrants will also receive a virtual Seether poster and tattoo in Second Life.”
You don’t actually have to be an “entrant” to get the poster. Just click on one of the signs. Anyway, one other interesting bit from the press release: “Seether are no strangers to supporting initiatives for their online fans with appearances on Xbox Live’s Game With Fame as well as a recent promotion made available to PSP users. Performances from the One Cold Night release and some of the band’s music videos were made available to PSP users via a unique network of gaming enthusiast websites created for gaming and music fans alike.”
I have two postcards from the Millions of Us sim with the Seether build, but Blogger is not in the mood to display them, so I’m temporarily leaching the file from Reuben’s blog.
Linden Lifestyles, “Pimp Your Own Ride: SL Marketing 101“: “98% of Second Life’s clothing, hair and shoe makers are absolutely crap at promoting themselves.”
Nicola Escher, “SL Marketing 102“: “The crux of my post is: don’t underestimate in-world marketing and promotion.”
Plus, the new October issue of SL Business Magazine talks about radio advertising, in-world PR, and profiles Aimee Weber, and the three most prominent design/marketing companies that are bringing real-world brands into SL.
Piers from PSFK wrote in to point out that Anomaly (an ad agency in NYC) has had an office in SL long before Leo and BBH. I went to check it out and here’s a post card. Their offices are at Tinjin, on an island across from PSFK’s office.
“In-Game Ads Burrow Deeper,” John Gaudiosi, Wired News, October 5, 2006
“Anyone who buys Electronic Arts’ NBA Live 07 game on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (when that console is released in November) will be able to unlock a host of new items and features in the game from Adidas Basketball.
“In addition to the over 100 Adidas-specific elements hidden in the next-generation game, to be unlocked over time through simple codes distributed through retail, online and real-world NBA events like the All-Star Weekend and NBA Finals, Adidas will provide single-use unique codes that message its new marketing slogan, “It Takes 5IVE.”
Continue reading "Wired on Adidas’s Partnership with EA in NBA Live 07" »
I caught this on Next Generation earlier (Link) and I see it’s also over on C|Net (Link): Nielsen has some statistics on videogames and you can bet people will be looking them over and trying to figure out where this market is headed. There’ll be plenty of debate, especially between the console crowd and the PC people, there’ll be some long blog posts covering this report (and I’ll read some of it), but I figure this one is easy: if the women are online, the guys (at 2-to-1) will be chasing them*. Case closed.
Original post: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1045
Continue reading "In-Game Ads Slide Into Your Virtual Bed" »
Love this ad on SL Exchange:
“This Corona Vending machine will quickly pay for itself even in low traffic areas. It is the perfect visual addition to your club, casino, restaurant or even home! It is a fun vendor with a fun product. Easily earn $5L unlimited times over selling the copyable Corona drink inside the machine.
A great investment oportunity to make some good money with minimal investment!”
IGA’s Darren Herman blogs about the recent OMMA panel on advergaming, calling it a farce. Hard to disagree. While advergaming has clear advantages in certain situations for certain demographics, I don’t see how you can make a sweeping argument in favor of advergaming over in-game advertising (or the other way around).
“Selling to Avatars,” Rob Walker, New York Times, October 1, 2006
A very top-line “for dummies” guide to the world of SL. The most interesting about it is that it appears in NY Times. Nice quote, too: “It’s a labor-intensive form of escapism, but these user creations are exactly what make the place interesting.”
– via PSFK
“Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0?“, Paul Hemp, Harvard Business Review, October 2006
HBR’s editor Paul Hemp does a follow-up piece to his “Avatar-Based Marketing“. The argument is similar to the one I made in the thesis: in-game shopping experience combines the best of the two worlds - the wealth of information, the wide product range and the convenience of online commerce with the social aspects of brick-and-mortar stores that online retailers hasn’t been able to replicate.
Selected quotes:
“As the experience becomes more realistic, there will be a return to the “social and recreational aspect of shopping,” a crucial element of bricks-and-mortar retailing that was lost when retailers went online, says Bob Moore, a sociologist at the Palo Alto Research Center who studies virtual human interactions. One can envision a group of teenage girls arranging to meet at a virtual store to try on clothes, comment on each other’s choices, and ultimately choose something, real or virtual, to buy. (Though the sales receipts from virtual items are small, getting people to sport branded items in a virtual world has its own benefits.)”
“But virtual shopping expeditions may be driven more by the urge to chat than the urge to buy. Virtual shopping “would give friends something to do as they socialize online instead of simply sitting and IM-ing each other,” says Michael K. Wilson, head of the company that runs There.”
“Even eBay, with its jumble-sale character, might be transformed from a tool for finding a particular item to a world in which people could rummage together through piles of virtual stuff, the equivalent of an afternoon of real-world antiquing in the country with friends—an event that, even if no one is looking for anything in particular, inevitably results in someone’s purchasing something.”
The big news of the week: two large ad agencies, Leo Burnett and Bartle Bogle Hegarty, have announced plans to open offices in Second Life (links to the announcements).
Leo works with Millions of Us on an Ideas Hub that will become a collaborative space for the agency’s creative people (AdAge). The creatives will apparently have to learn the new interface and port their works as textures into the world. You can visit the commemorative tree marking the initiative at Millions of Us 190,82,23. Leo Burnett Toronto’s blog has the full text of the press release and a few comments. Csven at reBang also offers his thoughts: “Someone needs to tell these old agencies that the first rule of Web 2.0 (and Second Life) is: Don’t go around bragging about how you figured it out and are now (finally) going to set up an “ideas hub”.
Continue reading "Leo Burnett, BBH Ready Second Life Offices" »
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM’s vice president of technical strategy and innovation, writes on his blog about virtual world’s potential for business and communications. Quotes:
“About two years ago, a study conducted by the IBM Academy of Technology concluded that technologies and capabilities from the gaming world would have a very strong impact on all aspects of IT, and made a number of recommendations for follow-on activities, which we have proceeded to implement.”
Continue reading "IBM’s Exec on Business Potential of Virtual Worlds" »
image credits: Kotaku
Kotaku says the long-rumored Burger King games for Xbox will “sell $4 with the purchase of a value meal and will be on sale from Nov. 19 through Dec. 24.” The titles are Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin, and Sneak King. Some screenshots here.
