Crayon launched their new marketing company in Second Life today. Sounds like a wonderful venture, with some remarkable people. I missed the presentation, but made it just in time for a fun cocktail party.
Meanwhile, the Second Life press releases continue to roll out - agency by agency. Adrants points to some great discussion about how marketers need to be careful about driving full speed into Second Life. Like any audience, Second Life residents are understandably becoming resentful about these big agencies jumping in and taking credit for inventing their world.
We too, are about to launch a couple totally awesome projects in Second Life. But we're being careful to consider the audience. This reminds me of some of the work we've done with action sports companies - in the skateboard, mountain bike and snowboard industries. We laughed hard when the big agencies tried to latch onto this demographic by adding the word "extreme" to everything they did, a few years ago. Of course, to the genuine audience, using the word "extreme" was an immediate red flag, symbolic of un-cool, corporate generated crap. Everything "X" or "extreme" was usually the work of an out-of-touch Creative Director (or client) attempting to identify with the stereotypes of the audience they thought they knew.
So when it comes to Second Life - we all need to be careful not to make the same mistake. Let's be true to the existing members who were here long before us, as well as the hundreds of thousands that will come in the next few months. At our firm, we're spending good time learning about and respecting the audience, and creating something that's genuine and useful to them. And we're not going to be EXTREME.
1 comment:
Very well said. At this rate, Second Life will become the next MySpace.
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