Living in a Virtual World - Last Night’s AiMA Event
By Stephanie Critchfield on Thursday, January 31st, 2008Last night’s Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association’s (AiMA) event - “How Virtual Worlds are Impacting Interactive Marketing” - featured an exceptional group of speakers and really fascinating content.
The event’s panel was moderated by Del Ross, VP of Distribution Marketing (Americas) for InterContinental Hotels Group – and one of our very favorite-ist clients! The panelists included:
- Christopher Klaus / Founder and CEO for Kaneva
- Mike Donnelly / Director Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola
- Rhonda Lowry / Vice President, Emerging Technologies for TBS
- Paul Greenberg / Director of Consumer Marketing for The Weather Channel
This event was special not just because Del wore his best jacket-tie combo, but because it was actually simulcast in-world. So people attended the real-life event and others logged into Crowne Plaza’s The Place to Meet island in Second Life to see it broadcast.
Check out a quick video of how this looked from Second Life:
Attendees were treated to great insight from leading brands who have done more than just dabble in virtual worlds. A few interesting take aways:
Coca-Cola has been active in virtual worlds for five years, taking a very deliberate approach to how they engaged in this medium. They wanted to allow their fans the freedom to enjoy the brand while at the same time providing some structure around doing so. For example, one of their projects was a contest - allowing users to submit ideas that would satiate their fan’s thirst for “an experience” (a play on words). The result was creative - and very brand adherent - ideas.
The Weather Channel is one of the most popular island’s in Second Life. They took a gaming slant in their space. This has led to a tremendous amount of sports-related activities on their island, such as mountain biking and surfing. Residents have even taken it upon themselves to hold surf contests!
Turner has also been involved in virtual worlds for quite some time. Their CNN brand allows Second Life users to be in-world reporters (a version of the real life iReporter). Another one of Rhonda’s more interesting case studies was about tapping into an existing Myst Uru fan base of hundreds of people in Second Life as a way of promoting their own Myst Uru world outside of Second Life.
Finally, Kaneva’s Christopher Klaus provided his perspective on what he believes will shape virtual worlds in the future. His belief is that many people will look to virtual worlds as a social outlet, which is why Kaneva is built to support this kind of culture. His stance is that while many of the worlds that are more fantasy-based will always have a core fan-base, others would be wise to create an environment that fosters social networking.
I attended this event via Crowne Plaza’s The Place to Meet Island in Second Life and I thought it was really interesting. Having never attended this type of event in Second Life before, I was impressed. Being able to simulcast a meeting or a presentation in-world can reach many audiences across the world. I hope to attend more of these type of events in Second Life in the future!
One of the things about hearing the panelists that I found very interesting, is that they didn’t come off as a group of Marketing execs who were early adopters trying to defend their choice to explore virtual worlds. Instead, they presented case studies that were based on research and learning from the experience and mistakes of early adopters. As a result each speaker presented thought provoking case studies that didn’t try to prove how one could make money from virtual e-commerce transactions (which was the nay-sayer criticism of virtual worlds), but instead expressed to those who might follow them that there is a very passionate and available audience to which a company that can market a brand with the right approach.
I attended this event in RL (real life) and was intrigued by the layering of realities within the “real” AIMA meeting space, in real time. Dr. Melissa Read was in attendance - in three versions of herself! She had a presence in RL, sitting in the auditorium with the “real” attendees. At the same time, she appeared as her Second Life avatar as we “real” people watched her in Crowne Plaza’s The Place to Meet Island. Her avatar was seated, watching a third video version of herself within that in-world environment. The similitude of each Dr. Read made the experience like that of looking at a reflection bounced between two mirrors into infinity. As her persona was reinterpreted each time, I’m curious how it affected Dr. Read’s perception of herself, whether underlining her feeling of self or was that self diluted? From the success stories provided by each of the panelists, one can conclude that the viewer of one’s own avatar does feel an amplification of self, based on the level of engagement people experience in-world.