MMOG – Massively Multiplayer online games are not just games – they are full economies and destinations. They really behave no differently than countries or cities in the real world – so why should marketing behave any differently in these worlds?
Second Life already has embassies of real countries, real business that have set up virtual location and a land developer that has “second-life-ed (?)” enough to make herself $1,000,000 in real dollars. Expanding into these platforms is more similar to expanding into a new country rather than another component of your marketing plan.
How is this for a job description? Virtual World Marketing Consultant. The Electric Sheep is a firm dedicated solely to improving the virtual world experience for business. Along with creating platforms for your avatar to have a brand experience, they help build strategies for companies to want to increase their presence in various virtual worlds like Second Life and There.com.
How much of your company’s marketing plan include a budget for “virtual” media buys ?
Thinking out-loud, there are a lot of upsides to being a consumer in the virtual world that marketers are starting to be aware of. People are spending a lot of time in these worlds and we all like buying stuff – so does it not make sense that we are going to be looking to these worlds as another location of consumption? Do you know how much more efficient I would be at getting through my shopping list if I could teleport and not have to waste time parking? What kind of impact could this have on supply-chain management if you could create the benefit of a retail experience (virtual) while still maintaining the cost-savings of a direct-supplier model (real)? You would never run out of inventory. If I were in sales forecasting – i might start getting a little nervous.
Of course there are downsides. Involvement right now is somewhat limited. There is no way you are confusing a virtual consumer experience for a real one when you still have to use a mouse and keyboard. In some services, going there IS the product (The Grand Canyon is not quite the same on a 13 inch laptop monitor) and that cannot be substituted for online, no matter how large the bandwidth.
