viralavatar: Seven points marketing plan in Secondlife

During my holiday in Norway, I brang with me an interesting study of KZero.about the 7 rules to follow to crate a strategic plan in Secondlife. This study it will be sure useful for my thesis.
Here some extracts and riflessions:

The Internet as we know it today consists of static 2D pages..Second Life is different. It is a 3D virtual environment accessed in real-time which allows people to walk, fly and teleport around a world created by the people who live in it...Second Life is the first glimpse into the future the Internet, a future of ‘Places, not Pages’.. Second Life is a global application, meaning that anyone can become a resident..

residents in Sl.. there isn't the percentual of "others"..

Second Life is not a gaming application. There are no scores, no ‘lives’ to protect, no objectives and no end-result.. The only similarity with World of Warcraft is the fact that they are both virtual worlds..(I don't think they are virtual worlds but synthetic worlds, named created by Edward Castronova. ...Here a my study about the syntetic worlds)..the average age of a Warcraft player is 17, for Second Life, the average age is 32.
and now the 7 points:

Point one: This is marketing, so have a plan.
Second Life (and metaverses in general) iit’s just another marketing channel..start to understand how the brand
can be leveraged in a virtual world..From here, on the basis that Second Life is a virtual world, you should explore how these attributes can be deployed and then expanded upon in a platform which makes a lot more things possible than the real world..

For example, the Mercedes Benz
re-created virtually with the ability for residents to take test drives.
Second Life strategy used the launch of the new C-Class as the driving rationale for entrance. Mercedes opened their virtual showroom several weeks before the real-world launch of the new model and used Second Life to generate interest in the car pre-launch. A launch party was held in-world and the car was

Point two: Keep the builders at bay
Second Life is a highly visual experience and in many ways, a blank canvas for creativity.. You need both (strategy+design), but strategy should always have greater importance, with design being a tactical element within an overall plan. To use an analogy, when you’re thinking of building a house, you meet with the architect first, not the builders.

Point three: Integrate
TV adverts often use tactical websites to support campaigns, companies often use cinema, radio and print channels to deliver the same messages and sales promotions (for example) promoted via direct mail..and Second Life is no
different.. fectiveness for campaign planning.. Marketeers should actively seek ways of integrating real-world marketing activity into Second Life and vice versa.

A great example of this is Nissan. They opted to use Second Life to promote the launch of the Sentra. The real-world campaign (Seven Days in a Sentra) used TV, print and online executions to explain the versatility of their new vehicle.
Another example is Microsoft. They integrated Second Life into their European launch of Vista with launch parties across the mainland areas, carefully selected to ‘seed’ activity into areas frequented by different European nationalities..

Point four: Giving is better than receiving
Second Life is about interaction and engagement in a collaborative environment. It’s not about opening a virtual store as an exact clone of a real-world building and putting product replicas of the shelves... Making brands and product ‘do something’
interesting and/or more than they can do in the real world is an excellent way of engaging visitors to a venue.. Giving something back to the population of Second Life should be a key objective of any strategy.
Adidas, for example, allows visitors to purchase the Microride - a virtual trainer, with special properties.

Point five: Keep the seats warm
One of the biggest mistakes a company can make when establishing a presence in Second Life is treating activity in the same way as a website.. A website in its typical form is a notice board Second Life on the other hand is a virtual environment and by design, this environment is constructed to allow virtual attendance and interaction by avatars... This does not mean you need to provide 24/365 coverage on a venue but it does mean that when launches and other key events are taking place inworld,
you need to have people who can speak with authority about the company present.. you normally do not know who the
actual person is ‘behind the avatar’. They could be your next customer, a key journalist or even your next boss..

Point six: Stoke the fire
Existence strategies give residents reasons to return. Which can only be a good thing. ‘Stoking the fire’ can involve several activities. Firstly, hosting regular events..to cultivate a valuable community of residents interested in your brand. These events can takemany forms, the best ones usually involving Other tactics designed to stimulate interest can
involve promotions or competitions which aretime-based.
Universal Pictures for example chose Second Life to deploy an interactive tie-in with the launch of the movie ‘Smokin Aces’.

Point seven: Promote and crosspromote
Now it’s time to tell people about it...It will not be long before Second Life venues are
promoted in TV, print and other mediums as promotion and then cross-promotion initiatives..Another promotional technique already being used by some companies is the use of tactical websites and blogs specifically designed to support Second
Life activity...

and here, in the last 7th point, there is what for me it's more interesting. For me and for my thesis of course. There are a lot of noise around Secondlife and on the brands who are in. It is still difficult claim them out of Secondlife but, somoehow, they are a ROI in image.

The main point of my thesis is that to claim the new campaigns of a brand who starts to work in SL is a Viralmarketing strategie in and out Sl. Blogs, forums, sites, opinion leaders, corporate blogs and video file sharing sites are the field where Goviral works (my company). And with my thesis I want open the field of my company.

Only with a trip in a wild place like the fiords in Norway u can understand where u r going..