Ruslan Browa (RB): Our traditional first question: please describe the business and services of This Second Marketing LLC. Say a couple of words about your team and its skills.
Joni West (JW): This Second Marketing LLC is a marketing agency specializing in introducing major consumer brands into the virtual world of Second Life. We help guide brands on how to effectively and properly enter SL and help them create a brand presence and brand awareness in the second life community. We insist that our clients bring real value to SL by providing free virtual items, promotions that link to real world items, contests, events and sponsorships.
We help our clients build passion and community around their products and brands. We have been very successful with our buzz agent teams who go out and interact one-on-one with residents of SL and give away freebies and landmarks to fun events.
RB: This is my favorite question: What is your favorite project of This Second Marketing LLC? What kind of project you dream of?
JW: Each project is like a child... you can't say which one you love best! We put our hearts into each proposal and project and we truly treat each one like it is our favorite. Currently, we have promotions in-world for Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix in imax 3d and for careerbuilder.com that are both really great and exciting!
RB: What do you think - why Second Life is so attractive platform for businesses? What kind of opportunities it provides?
JW: Second Life represents what the entire web will be like in 5 or so years... 3d! Getting in now and learning how to do business and market to this audience positions the early adopter for success when the 3d web is the standard.
The old model of advertising no longer works. The main ingredient of an advertising or marketing campaign used to be 95% about the 30-second commercial on tv. That is not nearly as effective as it used to be and will become less and less effective as digital communication grows even more.
Marketers are going to where the people are going. Consumers are going to the web and all forms of digital media in larger and larger percentages every day. Second life has a real economy of over $1,000,000 being transacted on a daily basis. Marketers are intrigued by this.
Second Life and the 3d web platform are in the equivalent stage that the web was in 1993. Companies know they need to get a web site but don't really know why. They have come to see that a web site is not an advertisement, it is a communication tool and that brands must have 2 way conversations with their consumers in today's marketplace.
Second life provided a unique opportunity for real one-on-one conversations with consumers and target audiences.
RB: What strategy will you recommend for small and medium businesses for opening of representative office in Second Life?
JW: It depends on what the business is and what they are trying to accomplish. I believe it will be a few years before a real world company will be able to make money with e-commerce in Second Life. That is not the reason to get in now.
Building community and learning how to market in this space is the reason to get in now. The people who wait on the sidelines will have to launch a 3d web presence at some point, and they while they can launch a site or presence, it takes time to build community and relationships. It doesn't cost a lot to start that process now and be positioned as the clear leader later, when every one of your competitors is in Second Life.
RB: Please tell us about brand marketing in a virtual world. What are its differences from a real world brand marketing?
JW: In many ways, it is the same but it also opens up possibilities for programs that cannot be accomplished in the real world.
The biggest mistake that I see big companies make is to build an expensive brand island and then expect people to come visit. “Build it and they will come” is a popular movie line here in the us, but it does not work this way in Second Life.
RB: How to calculate ROI of Second Life marketing?
JW: We are able to give our clients an exact count on how many individual one-on-one transactions that our buzz agent teams have in Second Life as well as their avatar names. The buzz agents ask the residents if they would like the free promotional items and whether they would like to be contacted in the future about new promotions. We reach tens of thousands of individual avatars with a one week buzz team promotion. We also can count traffic to a specific venue. Some companies like to see how many media mentions they get and where. These are the ways we demonstrate ROI.
RB: Give us a couple of examples of projects where the Second Life platform was integrated with other client's marketing media.
JW: We introduced 1-800-flowers, a large usa brand, into Second Life with a virtual flower show and distribution of virtual flowers bouquets that our buzz teams presented to residents and that those residents could then pass on to their friends in SL in unlimited quantities. The client intergrated the Second Life effort with special web links to their online web promotions. Imax integrated the Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix promotion in Second Life with a special online promotion which gave access to free imax tickets to see the movie.
RB: Is it necessary for businesses those plan to enter Second Life to possess any special skills? Which ones, if yes?
JW: Guts! I tell my clients that if you want to live on the cutting edge, sometimes you will bleed!
The fact is that Second Life is a new digital platform and is growing at an incredible rate. When I first signed up for SL in april 2006, there were about 150,000 residents. Today, there are over 8 million! Linden lab is using its resources to grow the platform and keep it stable however this is still all new and moving fast with a million moving parts to think about. If you recall, back in the early 1990's, there was no Google and you would buy books with lists of web sites to try to find what you wanted. Web sites were buggy. Second life is in that very early stage of development and if clients' expectations are not properly managed, they will walk away from a test campaign in SL very dissappointed.
As far as specific skills, it depends again on what the business is and what it is trying to achieve. My opinion is that brands are not always getting the best advice from their developers because their developers don't necessarily have the marketing experience to bring to the table for their clients' projects. A lot of developers are focused on building virtual things but don't have a clue how to build a brand or create a relationship with a target audience.
That is why I launched This Second Marketing LLC to begin with. It was painfully obvious to me that the early brands were being sold “sims” (term for island or build in Second Life) but not being guided in how to leverage and apply Second Life to their marketing objectives.
We are laser focused on the marketing power of Second Life and how to help our clients achieve their objectives for their brands. We also spend time with the client analyzing what they are trying to accomplish and explain what can and can't be achieved in Second Life at this time. We talk with our clients about what success would look like so we are all on the same page as we implement our plans.
I have turned away many companies who want to measure ROI solely on the amount of money they will generate as a result of a link to a Second Life presence. We cannot deliver ROI in those terms until more development is done in Second Life and that will probably take a few years. We can generate excitement and community around your product and brand in SL right now and help you build on that and convert those relationships to profits over time.
RB: What metrics/indices do you use to measure an advertising campaign success in a virtual world?
I believe i already answered that. We count buzz agent one-on-one interactions, We count venue traffic, We count media coverage.
RB: On your site I've read this quote: “Once I started exploring around Second Life, I realized that this was the start of something far greater than I had previously thought” - Maybe you can add something to this today?
JW: The more time I spend in Second Life, the more Ii discover and the more I love it. If you were to blow up the Second Life “grid” (term for the real estate that is in Second Life), it would be larger than New York city! It is impossible to cover all the streets and alleys and by the time you do, there are new ones!
I know that there are a lot of people who feel that being on a computer is not a social activity and feel that it inhibits one's social life but I feel very much the opposite. I have been able to make great friends from all over the world by traveling around and explaoring Second Life. These are interesting people in parts of the world I have never been who I would never meet were it not for Second Life.
People have finally grasped the idea of chat rooms on the 2d web, but SL gives you so much more! You can see a physical presence and you can explore places in 3d together. You can meet people very easily. I have read stories about people who are very shy or have some sort of physical challenge who don't have an easy time meeting new people or making friends. They shine in Second Life! Some are even considered SL celebrities! The playing field is equal for everyone in SL in the social sense and it can expand your social world to places you never imagined.
RB: Tell us about your art project in SL. Is it a business project or you do it just for yourself? I've seen your art on www.joniwest.com It's really fantastic! Very beautiful!
JW: Thank you for the compliment! I am an established fine artist here in San Francisco. I work in mixed media epoxy resin and high end mosaic. I have gallery representation and my work does sell though it is not my main source of income, it also beyond a hobby.
RB: If consider Second Life as a giant social experiment, what results can We expect in nearest future?
JW: As a social experiment, Second Life represents how we can connect with all kinds of people from all over the world in a unique environment without the pressures of societies and borders.
As more people hear about Second Life and the system requirements for running it are not as high as the current ones (most people can't run SL on their computers yet because of the high graphics capabilities needed), people who have not had access to social functions and educational programs will become more and more empowered through their Second Lives.
Edcational venues and programs are a large part of SL and people can have a far richer distance learning experience in sl than on the 2d web or mail.
RB: At the end of our talk, tell us about your vision of future. Maybe about the future of your company, Internet, Second Life or communication technologies.
JW: I believe that Second Life will continue to grow and will remain the main social spot of the 3d web of the future. I believe that every major company will have a consumer-facing 3d presence as well as a 3d intra-net (don't know that they will call that) for internal communications and training. I believe that Second Life will remain the virtual world, or metavers, of choice for a large portion of people who use digital communications for soicalizing and learning. Linden lab puts no restrictions on the content that any resident can put in SL as long as it is legal.
A brand marketer can enter and do whatever they like. I don't foresee a time when a 3d world created by a public or private corporation is going to allow that kind of freedom. By necessity, they will have to block access for competitive brands and monitor content for things that their investors may find offensive. Linden lab doesn't do that and has no desire to. I am sure it has something to do with the fact that Linden lab and Second Life started here in San Francisco where diversity and tolerance are part of the fabric of the city. So yes, there will be lots and lots of 3d web spaces but i don't see any taking the Second Life niche away from Linden lab.
It is also important to realize that the people who are residents of Second Life have built and bought an identity and home there. It isn't as easy to move your SL as it is to sign up for a new account on a website. It is much more like moving your real life and dealing with the fact that your stuff doesn't work in the new neighborhood and you don't know anyone and you can't look like you used to. People who live in Second Life tend to have deep roots that are not easy to move.
As for This Second Marketing LLC, we have already entered into some international partnerships in countries that are just starting to get into Second Life and we hope to have an international network of representatives within the year. Our goal is to have the happiest second life clients in the world!
Interviewer: Ruslan Browa
