brands

Ever wondered just how many major brands are now in Second Life, Linden Lab's 3D virtual world? There's a simple answer. KZero, a Metaverse consulting firm based in the UK puts the figure at exactly 85. KZero defines companies for inclusion in the figure as those "that can be classified as having high awareness globally, in their country of origin or in their respective sector that have an on-going presence in Second Life"

The report also charts a time frame for entry of major brands in the virtual world as well as by country,

For the terminally bored, or frighteningly easy to please among you, Vauxhall, a UK car maker I tend to class alongside it's Scandinavian cousin Volvo, have put together a buzz gen program in the virtual world of Second Life that only it's mother could love. Pick from a list of pre screened destinations in Second Life, and vote which ones you like best. W00t!

What would have ben far, far better as a way to gear up buzz and awareness over a new corporate presence would have been to team up with someone like Sloog or Gridmarker and allow residents to tag places they love with corsa for example.

If it turns out to be a wild success, i'll happily eat my virtual hat, but right now it just looks like someone had a great idea, then decided to finalize the details by running it through a committee of morons.

via Nic Mitham at KZero

Of course it is. It's fairly useless on the 2D web. With the proliferation of AJAX based web applications which bork the whole concept of a "page view", the rise of social networks and blogs where brand control is a laughable concept and, the widgetization of the web, where content becomes untethered and free, traffic as a measurement of success is ridiculous. It is however, something people can easily understand and digest, so as part of the overall picture, it still has it's uses.

In a somewhat defensive post in response to the "SL brands ranked by traffic" meme that did the rounds a couple of weeks ago, Satchmo Prototype of the Electric Sheep Company calls for a ranking of brands by engagement rather than raw traffic figures, pointing out that many campaigns in Second Life don't even have a destination where "traffic" can be measured. Unfortunately he doesn't offer any suggestions on how we might measure engagement in the virtual world, so I guess we're stuck with traffic and product distribution right Chris?

Well it was only a matter of time wasn't it? Google won't be there though, they don't do that, they have to own it right? Thursdays publicity event should prove interesting. IM me if you're going, we can all crash it together :)

Alain Thys posted this cool video of brands in Second Life, as well as a graph of top brands listed in order of traffic. Measuring success by traffic count alone is worse than useless, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless...

I've asked Linda Zimmer of Market Truths for a review copy of their new report, that she talks about here, that refutes much of the so called "common wisdom" surrounding attitudes to brands in Second Life. When I get that I'll pick out some of the more interesting findings for you but untill then, let's just look at the fact that a whopping 49% of residents think that the presence of real life brands in Second Life is positive. In fact, only a very slim minority expressed negative views on the topic. This is in stark contrast to the somewhat iffy figures we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

I've mentioned before that I think there's a lot of ill thought out brand presence in Second Life, and PR/Tech blogger Steve rubel would seem to agree. In fact a recent study found that Second Life residents are largely disapponted in corporate blundering in Linden Lab's virtual world. That being said, there's a great deal of opportunity for thoughtful, creative engagement in the Metaverse. Brands that take the time to do their homework, and can create brand experiences and brand extension rather than replicas of what they do in real life and harness the power of their existing brand advocates, enthusiasts and entrepreneurial customers have the potential to go far.

Nic Mitham, who's Avatar is Nic Whizenhunt if you want to contact him inworld, recently created a luxury brands case study which you can request a copy of. In it he gives an overview of the opportunities available, and the history of brands in Second Life. He points out a number of paths brands might take to reach the Second Life population (over 5M registered users now).

• Product launches
• Product placement
• Competitions
• Sponsorship
• Virtual retail

You can find more detail on each in the report. For now I want to draw your attention to a much bigger opportunity mentioned in the study.

Many brands aleady exist in Second Life, created by passionate brand enthusiasts and opportunistic, industrious virtual entrepreneurs. Residents create, and sell replicas of real life brands continuously, and this devotion and passion should be harnessed, envouraged and facilitated. Call off the legal department, it'd be like trying to kill peer to peer technology, you squash one, a dozen more spawn to fill the void. This is where smart brands should be looking to enter the virtual world. Not creating lame stuff like this, but working with residents that are already enthusiastic about their brand and helping those residents to create wonderful, challenging opportunities to spread the world.

Customer evengelism is alive and well inside of Second Life, and it's up to brands to work with it to everyone's benefit. That's the real opportunity.

Nic Mitham has posted a cool map of brands in Second Life. It's not a useful as the Wikipedia entry for organizations in SL or even his own company directory but it's a neat visual representation of major brand presense in Linden Lab's virtual world and helps put a little perspective to business in the Metaverse. Good job Nic!

So I'd like to do a little research into say, 10 top brands in Second Life and give ratings based on various tests/criteria. I think giving brands a mark out of 10 for various topics would be a good way of getting an overall picture of how good/effective they are in the Metaverse. Here's what I'm thinking:

• How easy was it to find them using the inworld search tools?
• Where am I? Once there, how hard was it to actually recognize and get into the building or area?
• What can I do? Was it obvious what you could do once in the brands area?
• Usefulness. Was the brands presence actually useful, can you actually do or get something of value from visting the brand, or did it feel like they were there "because everyone else is"?
• Customer service. Was there a real life representative of the brand there to help me? Was there a greeter bot, and did it help me? Make me feel welcome and informed?
• Navigation. How easy is it to move from place to place and generally navigate the brands building or area?
• Impression. Overall, how does the brands presence make you feel? Does it feel solid and professional, or hasty and cheap?

What do you think?

Is that enough? Have we covered everything? Do drop a comment in the box below or use the contact form to let me know what you think. It would be useful to get an idea of what brands you think should be covered as well.

The idea is that by putting major brands side by side, we may gain some insight into what's working and what isn't in the metaversed.

Do let me know your htoughts...