1. "If you think shoes in Second Life, you're likely not thinking Adidas or Reebok. You're probably thinking Moopf, Shiny Things, Simone. Why? Because they're giving you what you want. Adidas and Reebok are trying to give you what they want. That's a whole different game."
The thought you provoked is whether RL companies like Nike and Reebok, should make genuine SL things. The things you cannot find in ant RL store. The things that are probably impossible to produce outside the virtual world. But, the things that will communicate the idea or their brand and their RL product in new environment. Huh, you gave them a big homework.

Posted at 11:46AM on May 13th 2007 by dandellion Kimban

2. I like that .. It's true. Especially:

"This is Second Life, a communications medium that presents itself as a virtual environment. You, as a business, can afford to be different, innovative, even cool. Even if it isn't the same image your business uses in the physical world. Dare. "

Posted at 1:45PM on May 13th 2007 by Clement Rosher

3. "I'd say that Coke, and Coldwell Banker get it. Wouldn't you?"

Well, no. Why would I say that? Coke started a competition for minimal rewards; Coldwell Banker funded some land griefers. That doesn't seem to me to be "getting it" and neither have really had any real effect on the Grid.

Posted at 5:58PM on May 13th 2007 by Ordinal Malaprop

4. It seem like only Pontiac is some what "getting it".

RL and SL are very different. RL business are somewhat confused at difference between RL and SL marketing world.

So yes... in SL, people are getting what they wanted but not getting what they wanted from a RL business, in SL of course. That's why few infamous SL builders are getting more popular and traffic than all RL business in SL combined!

That's powerful, if you think about that.

As a builder, it's a fun part to do something better. ;)

Posted at 8:32PM on May 13th 2007 by Nacon

5. Pro-bono design competitions like what Coke started never attract professional designers in SL, the works you get are generally unfocused and self-promotional, in this sense these works miss strategical approach. In RL this type of contests when issued by big players are failures and damaging of corporate values. However, trying to get amateurs involved as active players in a collateral design may have merit but I see modest impact and interfacing riddled with conflicts.

Differentiation alone does not justify not generate success. Considering the best known case in RL, Apple, a number of factors drive success thru differentiation:

- differentiation makes sense, i.e. you can justify all you do, why you do it and empower it thru your support practices
- flexibile negotiations and wise, affordable symbolic narratives to (and thru) customers (Apple is strongest player on this)
- sharing emotions and how they drive your creations, express them in a professional manner, as subtly as you can, in your adverts (the "show a girl good time" Tateru mentions in her piece, just very descreet)
- not diminish yourself but never overrate your ego either. SL customers are VERY sensitive to egomaniacs as they see mirrored their (our) idle psychological state in the game.

Simone (et al) are not just selling "fantastic" items i.e. items that exert surprise, tackle ingenuity etc. as their designs are not available anywhere else or in RL. Not quite. The process is a bit more complex here.

RL entities feel by default a do-or-die need to communicate identity thru SL's context(s) and value as much as they can (most are in SL for the press releases). The resulting saturating process or, as I say, "confirmation panic" is what makes their brands banal, "mono", the deficit here is brand excess. THEIR TRUE problem is that "they have no choice". Their RL brands are not per-se boring or impersonal but under this umbrella are delericted down to tokens.

Simone (and the others) don't have such problem. They started from scratch, from observing these brands and their promises in RL, they started as "customers" and catalog eaters. Their openess is precisely what an RL identity can not afford. Simone (and the others) can mix, pretty much at will, in such way that their "lack of branding" is what we end up buying. They are not brands and are not necessarily more of a personal experience. What they affirm and sell is amateurish openess and freedom which, in time, as they perfect, may eventually become as boring and "mono" as the RL counterparts. Not "more personal" but "less defined", positively "open" is key.

Weak, low-impact branding, that's what it is, works well in SL and Simone (and the now-famous others) do exactly that. The quality of their creations only empowers the strategy.

Consider Reuters. Good journalists, good website with qualified and well written materials, good forefront job, and their sim has very low traffic. Why? My short brief:

- what their buildings communicate is "we are here to stay beyond the next singularity". Wrong. Corporate stubborness drives avoidance. You are not a bank. I, the customer, must at least live in the illusion that you are as mortal as me, your "here I am forever" presence is offensive.
- what the island says is "this was an island, we did our best to destroy it" (still looking for lounges)
- not a full-time crew. Look at what a small German firm specializing in press, pix2paper, is doing on their sim with a uniformed crew that works simultaneously RL and SL
- the Reuters sim has no event planning and they surely have room for that
- buildings don't change while architecture should be, where possible, tied to events and not be a rigid infractructure
- hard to navigate (nobody in SL seems to be interested in usability)
- concept so "solid" it loses scope

To be successful in SL you don't just differentiate your creations, you shift with them and bring all sense that you can with you and with you your customers go. Retention numbers do not ensure strong target "memory", the targets you see just come in waves. The very moment you stop shifting you're done.

Corporations can not, by definition, shift. They can buy you and your content but they live by strong brand affirmation. That is why they are doomed. The fact is not that they "don't get it", fact is that they "can't get it".

Posted at 10:27PM on May 13th 2007 by starcomber Vig

6. The biggest hump for Brick and Mortar companies doing stuff in Second Life is comping with a plan for return on investment. Individual companies tend to be skilled in a narrow bandwidth of profit margin. IBM sold it's PC division to Lenovo because increasing commoditiation make the margins tighter than IBM is good at managing, whereas Lenovo is very good at things in that range. Target and Costco are owned by the same people way up the line, but their management and production processes are very different because they operate in very different bands of profit margin.
Margins in Second Life are very, very slim. You average camper is merrily working away at about the same wage as the exposed Nike sweat shops in Vietnam. There are few companies of any size that can operate with margins that small. So, essentially, it's not really possible for most companies to do the same sort of business in Second Life like they do business in real life.
That leaves advertising or brand projection. The problem there is although the grid is groaning, there is nowhere near the traffic in Second Life as in almost any place you can advertise. I've crashed sims with less traffic than I get on my ho-hum homepage. When a marketing department looks at numbers reached per dollar spent, Second Life doesn't rate that high.
Those who are here are either those who are investing for the future, or those who simply want to do enough to get enough mainstream press coverage to make a splash. After that splash, the value proposition tapers off rapidly.
I don't think it's that companies don't get it or can't get it. I just don't think it makes sense for most of them yet.
As the local currencty strengthens, and prices rise, the equasion in favor of doing actuall business strengthens and we'll see more of that. As the scalability problems are solved and grid numbers start up towards web traffic numbers, the equasion for advertising and brand project gets better.
Then I think we'll see a lot more interesting things from RL businesses.
JC

Posted at 11:19PM on May 13th 2007 by Jaymin Carthage

7. I'd say that Coke, and Coldwell Banker get it. Wouldn't you?

Posted at 10:41AM on May 15th 2007 by z3rr0 Zeluco