'Objectification' is the prompt for this week's Single Frame Stories challenge. Although the example above is obviously not a single frame, this series of images I captured from a Hardee's commercial graphically depicts modern marketing's use of objectification to sell products.
In thirty seconds, the spot juxtaposes images of Padma Lakshmi devouring a big greasy burger, with wrist licking, finger sucking, up-skirt shots, cleavage close-ups, and finally the I-can’t-believe-this-isn’t-a-joke tag line: “More than Just a Piece of Meat.”
So. What are you hungry for?
Please share your single frame story with us by participating in this week's challenge. Upload your image to our Flickr pool by Friday evening and we'll add it to our new gallery on Saturday.
There's been a lot of discussion over the last year about the dreaded "first hour experience" in Second Life. Just yesterday, my friend and partner in creative crime Nightflower posted 3 Lessons Linden Lab Can Learn From LOTRO in New World Notes.
Before any first hour experience is possible, there must be some event that motivates a neophyte to register. Since many new registrations originate with a Google-powered ad, I decided to role play as a Twilight wannabe. I clicked one of Linden Lab's vampire-themed banners and followed it all the way through to my new avatar's first rez in Second Life.
Everything went very well at first. I expected the banner link to just dump me at the secondlife.com home page. Instead, it sent me to a nice vampire-themed landing page that led me through a series of simple steps to register. Very well done!
The trouble started when I logged in to Second Life. Although it did rez me within a vampire RPG area, I was left alone with absolutely no help in figuring out how to use the client or to make sense of the environment I was dumped in. I gave it a reasonable try, but only lasted about five minutes before giving up and quitting.
You can see what happened for yourself here. I think it's probably a pretty good representation of why so few people end up transitioning from new Second Life registrants to active participants. Maybe instead of talking about the first hour experience we should focus on the first ten minutes and work out from there?
These are actual Google "Sponsored Links" that Linden Lab purchased for the search terms "Second Life" and "Virtual Worlds". Are these the best pithy description of Second Life to attract new users?
Let's give them a hand and come up with some better ads! I'll be back tomorrow with some ideas of my own. In the meantime, please share any great ideas you come up with. Of coure, parodies are very welcome.
One of the "Become Your Avatar" Marketing Banner for Second Life
I've been somewhat puzzled by the recent focus of Second Life marketing on look-alike avatars. Although there's an untapped market for virtual mirrors, there's really no easy way for a nubie to acquire one. Certainly not as polished as the doppelgänger depicted in banners like the one above. So it seemed like attracting people to Second Life on the basis of something they would quickly find untenable was a bad idea.
I've also been a bit confused by the push to make Second Life more like Facebook. Very few of the people I know who are avid Facebook users seem very interested in Second Life. And those I know who are active in Second Life seem unlikely to want to bump into their mom or neighbor while in avatar form.
So why was M. and his team so hot on creating an influx of people who connected their human and virtual identities? Well, I can't speak to their actual motivations, but I've come up with something that makes sense to me.
From a marketing standpoint, the most compelling benefit of increasing the number of Second Life residents who will connect their human and virtual identities isn't merely that they comprise an untapped market. The game changing factor is the potential for Second Life to tap into the type of word-of-mouth marketing that has fueled Facebook's viral growth.
Most businesses depend upon personal referrals to supplement their own marketing efforts. But the high level of pseudonymity within Second Life undermines this "natural" process of growth. Many (most?) residents extend "What goes on in Second Life stays in Second Life" to the fact that they even visit the virtual world. So word-of-mouth is untenable.
Despite the positive potential of word-of-mouth marketing, I still think it's a very risky idea for Linden Lab to take actions that significantly increase the percentage of non-pseudonymous residents. If there's one thing that would cause a massive exodus of current residents to other virtual worlds, it would be a change in culture that makes them feel uncomfortable in their pseudonymity.
A post yesterday in New World Notes discussed Darrius Gothly's contention that creating a lower priced non-commercial land tier would help create a "Rebirth of Second Life":
It is my belief that if Linden Lab were to produce a Residence Only Sim product, price it more in line with what non-business people can pay and equip it with all the same Prim Counts, Script Limits, etc. that a full size Sim has now … they would almost overnight save their precious Virtual World. We would see an increase in people willing to spend time at “home” because they would HAVE a home. We would see sales of merchandise going up because you suddenly have a lot more residences to fill up, and we would see a rebirth of social activities because there are enough people logged in to actually make an event successful.
I'm all for lower pricing, but saving potential residents $10, $20 or even $50 per month isn't going to bring new people flocking into Second Life or keep discouraged residents coming back. The problem for most people isn't that Second Life isn't worth their money, but that it's not worth their time.
People who can afford broadband and Second Life-worthy computers have enough disposable income to pay a bit of tier. Most of them spend $100+ per month on entertainment such as cable television, movies, Netflix, books, etc. So if they are choosing to stay out of Second Life, it's not because they can't afford it, but because they choose to spend their time in other ways.
So if there's going to be a "Rebirth of Second Life", it's going to come from figuring out how to increase the perceived value, rather than how to decrease the price. A few things that come to mind are:
Improved search, maybe adding the type of algorithms Netflix and Amazon use to recommend likely options
A new client that actually decreases the learning curve, perhaps configured for specific interest groups.
More Linden Lab support for existing communities.
It's true that Second Life is losing some of their most cost-conscious residents to lower-priced OpenSim competitors. But given their place in the market and overhead structure (even after layoffs), Second Life isn't going to win out by being the cheapest virtual world, but by being the most valued.
Here's one more set of images related to today's earlier post on virtual world marketing and branding. These are screen captures of two current ads running through Google AdSense.
As Second Life has been moving in a more conservative direction, Twinity seems to be pushing the envelope of its "Powered By Real Life" tagline. I received an email today that included the image above. Now that I think of it, mirror worlds don't have to be all museums and landmarks. Maybe in the future we'll see a virtual Amsterdam with a Red Light district and decriminalized digital drugs. Maybe not.
These emails from Twinity arrived at the same time this morning. The top version came to me; the second went to Fourworlds.
As you can see, they are either doing A/B mail testing (evaluating two or more versions by splitting them within a mailing list), or using different versions that target specific attributes, such as avatar gener, geography, etc. Although the body of the emails are identical, the headline and opening blocks each feature a unique offer.
These are way more mainstream-targeted than even the most "I want my avatar to look like me" advertising for Second Life:
Have more fun with your friends – with all new pair animations! For the first time we will have new animations that can be performed with another Twinizen! Let your avatar give a gift to another Twinzen and see the reaction! Meet up at a party and do a turn of the Tango together! Even for more passionate moments, we have something in stock, from just holding hands, kissing under mistletoe to even more private moments. From Twinity News
And they're billing the two-wheeled Segway as "The Evolution of Movement":
Evolution of Movement: after the ripping success of the skateboard, we upping the ante with a more modern and sophisticated form of transportation! The Zach, a self-balancing upright electro vehicle will be the whole new way to ride. Move through the city, in a regal position while enjoying the envious looks of others! From Twinity News
So for all the flack we give Linden Lab for giving up its anything-goes youth, Second Life still presents one of the most open and flexible virtual world options. For now, anyway.
I was really excited today when I first scanned an announcement that Cisco was launching a new virtual world named "United Nations Citizen". Wow! With a name like that, I imagined they must be focusing on some really lofty vision to bring the people of the world together to promote peace and understanding.
The idea was so intriguing that instead of reading the announcement very deeply, I jumped right to the virtual world's website. Hmm. Their slogan is "where faithful friends unite". That seems really warm and fuzzy. A video played at the top of the screen showing a long-haired dude standing in front of a cool yellow sports car inviting me to "become a United Nations Citizen now!"
I poked around a bit, but couldn't find a way to sign up for citizenship, only an application for a virtual job.
I went back to the press release to try to figure out what was going on. Five companies were named as partners: Cisco, Equifax, Heads and Tails TV, Faithful Friends TV and Montage Systems. Strange combination...a couple firms delivering programming for pet owners, an advertising agency with a direct response bent, the leading supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet, and a company that holds one of the largest sources of consumer data in the world.
I read on:
More than 330 stores already are members of United Nations Citizens through affiliate marketing agreements, including Apple iTunes, Microsoft Store, Walmart, and Sky Mall, providing customers a unique way to view products and services in a setting that replicates real-world environments. Member companies are able to scale real-life presentations, combined with data collection, personalized product placement and digital signage, through seamless delivery over the web and mobile networks.
Call me cynical, but it seems to me that their vision of the future equates "citizen" and "consumer" and is creating a virtual world that is a place to herd the world's faithful friends into an environment that is more "Minority Report" than "Avatar". Oh well.
What do you think? Here's the video that accompanied their press release.
I attended a text chat presentation today with the catchy title: "Are people in virtual worlds normal?" It was given by Pebbles Hannya (aka Mary Ellen Gordon, PhD), managing director of Market Truths. She discussed her company's recent Psychographic Segments and Media Consumption report.
The bottom line (which is what counts, right?) was that Second Life participants fit nicely into some of the same segments that normal people are grouped within. Ideally, marketers won't have to reinvent the wheel to design advertising that appeals to us avatars. As usual, I have a few thoughts on the fringes of the main question. I'll share two for now:
The environment and culture of Second Life is so unique that I doubt it makes sense to port meatspace marketing. The first wave of corporate marketers are pulling out because the tried and true methods don't cut it.
Second Life is so data-rich that marketing can be almost completely personalized. I recently saw a poster that pulls the image from a nearby avatar's profile and displays it. No good reason that it couldn't pull other info from the profile, picks, etc. and create a completely customized message.
For the low, low price of $25,000 Lindens, you can purchase the complete report. Maybe I should make a career move?
