Coke, one of the biggest of big names in world marketing has officially launched itself into SL today. The title comes after the number of times Mickey Douhet (Coca-Cola's Director of Global Interactive Marketing and SL resident for the last six months or so) mentioned "viral" in the presentation.

Despite the rash of viral advertising and viral dissemination, I have to say I think it shows that Coke did spend some time and thought here. Are they making a big island, and a big splash, and hoping we'll go and visit them? No. What they are doing is launching a competition (full details on their launch sitevirtualthirst.com for an idea to make something in SL that will be the SL equivalent of the RL Coke machine. This machine will then spread around SL, just like RL. It's phenomenally successful IRL, so why not in SL? It's also a new approach, at least for the big RL companies. No guarantees it will work, but it feels like a different idea in SL to me, and that's a good thing to see.

Mickey was keen to point out you don't need to be an expert builder in SL to enter: they're looking for an idea they can use and there are hundreds of ways you can enter - email, in-world drop box, photos on MySpace, links to YouTube videos etc. The drop-box is in their current pavillion in Crayon which also contains a few ideas from the Millionsofus people to spark your creative juices.

For those of you that have coke machines, or are in the Coke's Fan Club group (yes, there really is one), don't worry. Coke isn't planning to get legally heavy about it, and in fact the founder of the Coke's Fan Club is being invited to the second launch event, later today. I have to say I don't drink their products, hardly any fizzy drinks in fact, but I like the fact they're trying something different in SL, and wish them every success.