Face it, you can't really practically market a physical world product or physical world service in Second Life. Attempts to do so haven't really worked out all that well and end up damaging the image of the marketer or the brand. What you can do is perform image-enhancement for your container brands, and general public relations -- and that can work very well.

Let's try an example to illustrate what I'm talking about. First, I'll hypothetically pretend to be Apple corp. Just pretend I'm composed of roughly 20,000 people at least one of whom wears a mock-turtleneck.

Product Strategy

Imagine that (as Apple) I bring my presence inworld. I grab myself a sim. I set up a showcase for my products, and a store where you can buy prim iPods, iPhones, iBooks and general iStuff.

The problem is that these things (aside from their appearance) have no actual connection to their physical counterparts, other than the name, and the appearance. They don't perform the same functions as the real product, or have the same interface as the real product. It would be like selling foam rubber iPods to people in the physical world and thinking, "Hey, we're promoting our brand, yeah!"

You see the issue. A fake iPod doesn't entertain anyone over the age of four. Six, if it bounces. Thirty-six if a team of software engineers can use it as a weapon for inter-departmental warfare -- but none of these is going to sell you any more physical iPods. They do not contribute to the brand experience.

Without a solid connection between the physical product and a Second Life representation, your attempt at building the brand experience will more likely have a detrimental effect on your company's overall brand image. You'd be far better served putting up product brochures for your physical products.

Image Strategy

At the other end of the spectrum we have image enhancement. This, so far, has proven to be the most effective marketing strategy for physical companies establishing a presence in Second Life. That is, essentially, providing some set of experiences or facilities that the residents of Second Life will find generally enhancing, educational or enjoyable. Sponsor classes, build out sims that are educational or entertaining, provide a translation service, or a method for people to order physical pizza delivery. Give actual value and people will respond.

A necessary component of this is adaptability. Crazy as the idea might sound, you need to know what works for your target (Second Life residents, in this case) and find ways to provide it. You might try a few things and get a string of misses, but by experimenting and listening to feedback you vastly increase your chances of striking gold.

Now, think about that for a minute. You already do this with your physical products, right? Whether you make portable music players, PC software, fishing tackle, or data-center grade network hardware. Why wouldn't you do the same in Second Life, where the cost barriers to it are lower? That's a good question to ask yourself, because a lot of businesses don't do it in Second Life!

Image enhancement isn't about waving your products at people. It's about reminding people that you're a cool, interesting company that cares (insofar as corporate policies generally permit), and reminding them that you are there when the time comes for the person to seek out a commercial product or service, or make a choice between you and your competitors.

Having a presence means actually being present. An empty store full of vending machines and no clear method for communicating with your staff sends your message very well. The message is "We don't give a damn. We just want a slice of hype."


R&P Strategy

There's a third angle, which is just using Second Life for yourself and your company, and learning how you can use it to enhance your company's interoperation and business processes. In so doing, you can learn some of the lessons that come with image enhancement, but can suffer a little from Groupthink. That's the research and productivity angle.

Conveniently the research and productivity strategy can be combined with image enhancement. While everyone else is stumbling around the notion of trying to derive value from non-physical worlds in years to come, you and your business will have already acquired the expertise and the 'smooth moves' and be able to move forward confidently, leverage the synergies (ahem - sorry about that) inherent in the non-physical demographic spaces, and adapt to changing media and communications without spending a bundle doing it, and with a lower risk of screwing up and making an ass out of your brand.

Final thoughts

Tailor your message! The Adidas "Impossible is Nothing" message becomes weaksauce when it hits the reality of Second Life and the people in it. Your message might be a clear call-to-action in a dozen other channels, but if you're not prepared to change it, a message that is incompatible with the target is a liability. You know that. You base corporate strategies around it already. Don't forget that here.

Reebok made the error of dealing in product, and the image of the product, and not the image of Reebok. Come on, boys. You know that Reebok isn't about footwear. Still, you had a great idea, and it could work. You just need to follow through with it. You've got the groundwork for what could be a very successful strategy, but you need to adapt it.

Like any marketing exercise with unknowns in it, you can reasonably expect to not get it right the first time. Don't make noise about the fact that you are marketing and just persist in doing it and adapting it. We're all still learning how this works and you can be guaranteed that things will change. Don't forget the marketing lessons of the physical world just because this isn't it, but remember you're dealing only with image here, not with product. Second Life businesses dealing in Second Life products to Second Life residents -- we'll leave that until another time.

You can get this right, with less than half as much attention as you paid to your last physical world product launch. Alternatively, you can have a couple quick meetings and sign a check in the hope that you don't have to put any thought into the strategy -- which is a great way of ensuring that nobody else will put any thought into your strategy either. Nothing about bringing your company image into Second Life will be fire-and-forget.