I recently had the chance to listen to Michael Tchong, founder of Ubercool and creator of Trendsetters.com, give a review of emerging digital trends. In the process he mentioned Second Life, the massively multi-player game that offers over a million users the chance to create a new persona and new life online. Subsequently, one of my colleagues stated of Second Life, “It is an unbelievable waste of time.” The question is, was his thinking too short-term? Many other companies have sought to set up shop in Second Life, so clearly they must think that there is an advantage to be gained by doing so.
Michael Tchong was one of the presenters at Millward Brown North America’s Marketing Conference held in Boca Raton last month. Over the years, this conference has evolved from a chance to meet colleagues and discuss our own agenda to an excellent review of the issues facing the marketing world. Speakers represent advertisers like Starbucks, Unilever, SABMiller, Kellogg’s, Holiday Inn, and agencies like O&M, Tribal DDB Worldwide, JWT and Wieden+Kennedy. Michael’s presentation was a rousing climax to two days of thought-provoking content.
Michael made no attempt to extrapolate on the trends he reported. As he said, he merely observes what is already happening, and leaves it up to us to draw our own conclusions on what the future will bring. Second Life was just one facet of the always on, digital lifestyle he portrayed, but it provoked a series of follow-up discussions, at the center of which was, should Millward Brown set up shop there?
We would certainly not be the first company to do so. Toyota is already established there, selling their Scion cars, Adidas sell the a3 Microride, and Starwood Hotels have built Aloft, the first virtual hotel. Following these big name advertisers are virtual agencies, research companies and Reuters.
If my colleague is right that Second Life is a waste of time—and he is not alone in his opinion— then are these companies also wasting their time? Charlie O’Donnell has an interesting post titled 10 Reasons to Go Short on Second Life which concludes that the very nature of creating a fantasy life is at odds with the authenticity represented by Web 2.0.
There can be little doubt that Second Life is not for everyone. Currently, I have enough trouble keeping up with reality, never mind an alternative reality. And as my doubting colleague stated,
“For anyone who plays with a PS2, or even a DS, the quality of the graphics and movement is terrible, and, having got nowhere in the first couple of hours, once you have dressed your character and worked out how the controls work you quickly start to wonder why you are there. Late on a Friday evening, in this massive new global phenomenon, I was on line with 14,000 other people. The word ‘hype’ springs to mind.”
I would agree that Second Life has been hyped, and that the environment lacks the physics of a really good video game, but unlike most games, the draw is not so much the fantasy experience as the chance to literally create something new, whether it is a video, real estate or a new product. (See this link on the Second Life community.)
Critically, the metaverse uses a currency that can be exchanged for real money (see story in BusinessWeek), which not only presents a chance to make money but a chance to explore that most difficult research issue: pricing.
For my part I do not think the companies already in Second Life are wasting their time. If nothing else they have benefited from the hype, but, more than this I think they are benefiting from the learning that participating in a virtual world provides. It may not be a compelling experience and the results of research conducted there may not be representative, but it is a prototype of the world to come. Technology and bandwidth are improving rapidly and it won’t be too long before the second generation of Second Life makes the first look sad. I believe these environments are here to stay. Businesses and marketers need to start thinking about how to work with them.
So what do you think? Should Millward Brown open an office in Second Life? Would research conducted there be worthwhile? What might we research in a virtual world that cannot be done in reality?
(17 votes, average: 3.76 out of 5)
Loading ...
Email This Post
December 6th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Measuring the effect of product placements in TV shows is a request we get often in the Latin American Region. We do not seem to be able to come up with something sensible. Perhaps Second Life is good environment to give this a try!
December 6th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
In response to your closing questions, I think that in one sense research can be useful simply within the context of the virtual world itself. As there are in-world businesses operating inside Second Life, then there will be some place for research in that context, and the issue of representativeness becomes much smaller/non-existent in these cases. This may be a relatively small market though, especially for a giant like Millward Brown..
More crucially IMO, I don’t think it’s only a question of “what might we research in a virtual world that cannot be done in reality”, but also a question of how we can make use of this new medium to conduct research more efficiently. Think about use of the web for research - there tends to be little in a web survey that we couldn’t do “in reality” through CATI/CAPI/Paper surveys, but the web lets us conduct these surveys much more efficiently. Similarly, the existing 3d environment provided by Second Life could enable us to do the kind of things that would otherwise take substantial investment to build - a couple of examples that come to mind may be virtual concept testing and even co-creation (I posted a recent, interesting co-creation plan by Philips Design on my blog), and making use of Second Life for qual-type focus groups (why invest in your proprietary virtual reality/ 3d focus group platform if Second Life provides all the basics for - more or less - free?).
A final thought - maybe it’s not so much about any given company opening an office in Second Life as it is about some individuals in these companies getting familiar with it. Get an account, play around, see what’s there, what you like, what you don’t like. This will give you the kind of experience you’ll need to start talking about what may or may not work in Second Life.
December 7th, 2006 at 3:18 am
Hi Nigel, a few comments on your post :
(1) there are, already, dynamic market research in Second Life. One of them is a french company named REPERES which has already started studies in SL,
(2) Second Life is not, for the moment, a Metaverse but only a UNIverse - Metaverse’s will appear in the upcoming year or two based on principles tested in SL. The biggest market approach change will come with these emerging metaverses,
(3) upcoming Metaverse’s will be Peer-to-peer based and, as such, will challenge new social organizations,
(4) V-bizness is here to stay … and to grow !
(5) and, of course, Millward should be present in these univereses. It’ll lead researches from studying trendsetters to looking broadly and deeply at the new consumer communities that will be formed. These research will be worthwhile !
Voilà, some thoughts on these subjects … Hope they can help !
R.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Thank you for the comments, guys.
I suspect this is a topic that will stir up some debate.
Mario, I can definitely see a role for testing design and packaging in a 3D environment like Second Life, although this will remind some of my colleagues of a service we tried to launch called SoftShop, a virtual supermarket, and may scare them off even more!
Manuel, would you not have to create the show as well as the product for placement?
Robert, I have seen others refer to Second Life as a metaverse and it is very similar to the description of The Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, yet you suggest it is only a Universe. Can you expand on points 2 and 3 for us?
Merci, Nigel
December 7th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Your colleague didn’t do a great job explaining why SL was a waste of time (or, if he did, you didn’t convey his skepticism). However, the quality of graphics is a red herring. It is a social community, and social communities have existed virtually for years, and are thriving, in the forms of boards, forums, ratings sites and more distributed blogs. SL is all that, but it ponies up more: multimedia and spatial dimensions. As you said, the graphics will get better, but to value it based on standalone video game graphics is misguided.
However, I’m not going to disagree with your colleague that SL is a lot of hype.
Finally, it would help to first give a definition to “waste of time.”
December 7th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Hi Max, thanks for the comment. Maybe he simply meant that he would get more pleasure from doing something else?
December 7th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Well, I’m a big fan of WoW (World of Warcraft) a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) where I play with other 15 million people (each paying 15 USD per month) and I can tell you, “games” like Second Life are not a waste of time or resources!!!
December 8th, 2006 at 9:45 am
So Jorge, can you tell us what value you get from WoW? Is it the interaction, the strategy, emotional rush of success? It might help others, like the colleague I refer to in the post, better understand the attraction of games like these.
Also, I keep wondering whether the next generation will actually have value in the business context. Might a virtual world allow us to meet and discuss things more effectively than we can over the phone, e-mail or video-conferencing?
December 8th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Nigel - re. business use, as an example, IBM are starting to use Second Life for things like virtual meetings, mainly for employees, and up to point for meetings with business partners. Their CEO recently went in-world for a virtual town hall meeting (more info at http://eightbar.co.uk, where most of the IBM metaverse guys blog). Their are limitations (since it’s hosted outside IBM, there are issues with IP and confidentiality, so I believe the most sensitive inter-company information may not be discussed there..)
Text 100 have also used it for staff meetings, and in her summing up after the first 3 months, their CEO Aedhmar Hynes writes… “Having now held a series of Text 100 internal meetings – like our 25th anniversary celebration - in Second Life, we have experienced first hand that the quality of interactions in virtual 3D worlds is engaging in a unique way. For many of our people who are dispersed across the world, they’ve felt it’s been the nearest thing to generating a sense of camaraderie without physically gathering people together in one room.” (Full post here.)
Given how badly video-conference meetings tend to work (at least in my experience), I do believe there are opportunities here for geographically dispersed teams.
December 11th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Thanks for the follow-up Mario, it is much appreciated. And I thought my comments were idle musings!
December 13th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Well, I’d say all of those you said:
1)I get distracted and entertained, a good way to end a day or enjoy a weekend (very much like any other hobby)
2)Stimulate the imagination by “roleplaying” a fantasy character, bringing him to life and achieving great fame and fortune (very much like kids play make believe, or D&D)
3)Everyday I encounter old friends and make new ones, all across the globe (just like usual chat)
4)I get to save the world from imminent destruction by hordes of trolls, undead, demons and dragons!! (so the rush of victory is there, like board or video games)
This kind of games have the potential of a very engaged audience, so correct brands could find a place inside these virtual worlds in order to build strong emotional linkage and experiences.
Thanks Nigel!
December 13th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Thanks Jorge, keep up the good work!
December 18th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
I do have to add after reading the first post, I have joined SL. It has quickly become a good hobby. Interacting is fun, especially with people across the globe, but the role playing is AMAZING. I am not sure which kind of person is attracted to something like this, but given the amount of people on it at any give time, we do make an interesting subsample of the population.
I am quite sure there is some interest for marketers. Who are we? How do we spend? Would we rather buy a virtual good or a real one?
Cheers Nigel (although I must say I don’t know if this thing you’ve done by turning me onto this is good or bad)
December 19th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Hi Manuel,
Well I hope it’s a good thing. By being actively involved, rather than an interested spectator like me, you will be well positioned for the future.
How long before we see some virtual pottery for sale on SL?
Cheers,
Nigel
January 8th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Hi Nigel,
back for an answer to your questions …
1) SecondLife is not a metaverse
this is a fairly technical question. Real metaverses will be implemented through open-sourced client software interface. But this type of approach is coming fast !
It’s interesting to note that the gaming industry is, almost, the last part of the software industry that hasn’t encountered Open Source yet !
2) PtoP architecture
it brings us back to something else. SecondLife, altough seen as a game environment, is not a game. It’s a first implementation of a new user interface. The third generation after Ms-Dos and Windows. That type of interface will become a new way to interact with your computer, both local and net wide. In this aspect, the future client interface will propably rely on PtoP type protocol, allowing everyone (who wants to) to implement a universe, both private and public. Each and everyone will the have the possibility to cruise along these different and multiple metaverses,
Voilà ! Hope my (late) answer wasn’t too technical,
cheers,
R.