Virtual Reality - Marketing in "2nd Life"
Second Life is "an online, 3D virtual world imagined and created by its Residents." Many people who how have a presence in the community take it very seriously, engaging in relationships, constructing their fantasy environments and visiting those built by others, and even engaging in commerce. Some consumer product companies are already paying for advertising in this virtual world. This poses the question: Will virtual communities become a useful tool for building product marketing?
A recent posting on the CSI Blog points the way:
- An architect is using 2nd Life to help clients visualize proposed projects.
- Architecture schools are using virtual worlds to study urban planning and designs.
- Steelcase, the office furniture systems company, has a showroom in cyberspace. (See illustration above).
Bottom Line: Find some 20-something year old employees who grew up on computers and give them a chance to create a presense for your company there. It will motivate them to learn more about your business and how customers behave, and give them an opportunity to play with new ideas -- they may just invent the future of your business there.
Those who want more info on business opportunities can download a study here.
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2 comments:
Someone told me about this in 2007, and how customers can go into a store such as Best Buy and actually make a purchase. I'm excited to see where this goes in the next few years! I'm sure avatars can already walk into Home Depot and purchase some building products.
A tip of the hat to Michael for referencing my blog.
Jill, I have been pointing out the opportunities of virtual worlds for awhile now. And, as a demonstration I set up a sample where you can go in Second Life, see a floating display of MF2004, click on it and buy it. Best yet, nothing new needed to be done - the script in the display summoned the browser and takes you to the CSI bookstore and the specific page for purchasing MF2004. So you can use an existing web presence to enable early efforts.
But there is more to it than that.
I recently participated in an international product demonstration. Phillips Electronics (of the Netherlands) had a Second Life product introduction. We got to work with how a new lighting system worked in several applications. And they had not even gotten to a working model/prototype stage, and yet they got to get really useful feedback from potential customers. There were several groups of 5 to 7 people, typically each group had someone Europe, South America, the US. We all interacted in real time together, seeing what others were doing with the product, asking questions.
The true usability of these virtual platforms is not tomorrow, its right now. And for the most part, free.
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