Since the publication of my piece about advertising in SL there have been not one, not two but three advertising industry reports about advertising in SL being hard.
These articles all (in part) refer back to a survey conducted by market research firm Komjuniti. Many of the textual comments are things you might expect, but there are some startling numbers to work with:
- 72% of those asked were "Disappointed with how SL is being used."
- 42% felt "Advertising in here is a fad, not bothered about SL, just being cool by association."
- Only 7% felt "RL brand advertising in here made me change my buying habits."
Sobering reading indeed. The third article refers back to a longer piece by HP's Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy and Excellence, which contains some dubious points (he doesn't have time to have a second life, so no one else does? Valleywag is a reputable source of unbiased opinion about SL?!) but he does highlight similar themes to my earlier article and the general chat you see. In particular, there is a need for RL advertisers to change their tack and not just roll out their RL progress, and that this will take time, effort and money - more than they expect.
I find it hard, verging on impossible, to imagine advertisers won't stop for a little while - but maybe we will see a change so that they start doing advertising that actually works in our world. Whether that's good or bad I don't know, but I suspect it's coming.
1. I think part of the problem is that companies are looking for traditional media within Second Life and not using the potential of the medium.
In this blog post I talk about the need for a more viral approach to advertising and put forward the Inside This World Holodeck as a viral 3D advertising medium.
Posted at 11:04AM on Apr 9th 2007 by Biscuit Carroll