THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

In advertising, one thing is certain: when your spend stops, your advertising disappears. In marketing, when the event ends, the results end. In promotion, when the free widgets run out, the traffic spike disappears.

“Well, like duh,” you’re probably saying. “Everybody knows that.”

Yeah, this isn’t surprising. Advertising and marketing have always been driven by budget. Ongoing budget. Spending forever. And, in the halcyon days when traditional media like television, radio, and print dominated the landscape, that was fine. You could talk “share of voice” and sustain the spend based on maintaining that share.

Even in the early days of interactive, things worked the same. Online advertising, search engine optimization, and SEO offered much more granular metrics, but one thing was certain: the results lasted only as long as the spend.

But let’s look at today. With the rise of social media and virtual worlds, marketers have an entirely new opportunity to build campaigns that last far beyond the spend, that transcend limits of budget, and engage people in completely new ways.

“Now he’s gone off the rails,” you’re saying.

Well. Maybe. But let’s take a closer look. What types of media have effects long after the fact? User-extended games like Counterstrike. Movies, from cult classics like Office Space to blockbusters like Titanic. And some really, really exceptional commercials like Apple’s 1984.

What do all of these have in common? Story. Compelling story. In Counterstrike’s case, it also has user interaction, community, and user-created content.

And you can get all of these in a virtual world.

Consider this: what if, instead of spending $20M on that next ad campaign, you earmarked a couple percent of that budget to create and maintain an engaging virtual world. What if you invited talented story developers, game developers, or filmmakers to participate? What if you let them find out what people wanted, respond to it by building a persistent, story-based virtual world, and invite the visitors to participate in extending the world?

Is it possible that the buzz and blog coverage would get you the equivalent of millions of impressions? Yes.

Is it possible that the goodwill created by doing such a thing would gain you hundreds or thousands of new brand evangelists? Again, yes.

Is it possible that you might create something that would have a life for years after the initial event? Yes.

And even if it accomplishes nothing more than the first two goals, is it worth doing? Yes.

But, most of all, it is your chance to create something lasting. To go beyond the spend. To make something with a life of its own. To paraphrase Eric Rice, every company is a media company. It’s time to look at the possibilities of getting relevant, engaging media out into the world. It’s time to look at what you can create beyond the 30s spot.

Because, as marketers, we all know one thing: if we play the old game, the results stop when the spend stops.

News flash! 72% of survey Second Life residents are disappointed with brand presences in-world.

Yeah.  We could’ve saved Komjuniti the time by taking them on a tour of the abandoned brand ruins, those monuments to Stalinesque architecture whose designers’ mottos must be "Bigger is better.  So is brushed concrete."  The ones whose traffic graphs would show a spike of activity on launch day, followed by a precipitous drop that has the head of marketing asking, "Why are we paying for this, again?"

But there’s more here than builds that instill feelings of dread and insignificance (though it sure doesn’t help).  This feels a lot like the early days of the Web, when companies panicked, grabbed the nearest intern by the mullet and said, "Quick!  We need a website!  Take our latest brochure and copy it!"  No company would do that today because everyone understands that what drives the Web is conversation.  It’s not enough to push content onto an audience; people expect the ability to push back, and woe betide the organization that ignores its customers.  They’ll create critical websites of their own, flood forums with negative reviews and take their business elsewhere.

So, if the Web’s core value is conversation, what drives virtual worlds?  Interaction.  Engagement.  Experience.  It’s not enough to make a replica of the company HQ or a giant mockup of your shaving cream can.  You need to give your audience something to do, to make them a part of what you’re selling.

The Weather Channel, known for its bold and inventive programming like Your Weather Today, gets this, as shown by their new Weather Island build.  Created to promote their series Epic (which could be subtitled Stupid Meteorological Tricks), Weather Island features different environments and the fun stuff people can do in them, like surfing and skiing.  There’s also a little bit of, gasp, education in there, too.  Notecards explain the mechanics of waves and avalanches and erosion, but I was too busy surfing to pay attention.

Despite the clunkiness of LSL, I had fun playing around on Weather Island, enough that I’ll probably come back so I can keep practicing.  Now imagine if TWC started adding contests and special features for returning visitors, and you’ll start to get an idea of how to run a successful virtual world campaign.  TWC has given residents free stuff, and its given them something to do with said stuff.  Now, this doesn’t mean your ball bearing company has to make a game that features Rollo, The Happy Ball Bearing, and his adventures against the evil Friction Family.  But it does mean you’ll have to think hard about what you’re trying to do in a virtual world and ask yourself: are you creating a new experience for your audience, or just another brochure?

As much as we love Second Life, sometimes nothing beats meeting, as, well, meat. You know, like in the flesh. In person. For one thing, food tastes so much better. For another, alcohol is more predictable. And we don’t have to worry about atomic bombs and flying genitalia. Well, not so much.

So here’s an open invitation to other virtual world aficionados, developers, game creators, Web 2.0-ish people, marketing wonks, media geeks, creative types, studio heads, random billionaires, and all other interested parties: join us on Thursday, April 5 for the first meeting of Virtual Hollywood, our new MeetUp group. There’ll be plenty to talk about: firsthand reports and recaps of Virtual Worlds 2007, trends in Second Life and other virtual worlds, creative introductions from group members, what are the best drinks at the Pizzeria Mozza bar, and (as we used to say in advertising), "much, much more!"

Sign up here.

So, if you’ve ever wondered what Second Life or other virtual worlds can do for your brand or for your productions, or asked yourself "where is this all heading?" or simply want to meet some of the other people shaping the metaversal future, this is the place.

Think fun. Think informal. Think good food and drink.

Think anything you want, but mark your calendar, and attend the first meeting of Virtual Hollywood!

Yes. That means what you think it means.

Or, if you want to be a little more PC, "What the heck?" But no matter how you express it, it’s a very powerful phrase. Especially in an environment of change. It says, "Loosen up. Maybe you can’t plan that far out. Maybe you can’t plan that at all. But what the heck, let’s take a chance. Let’s experiment. And let’s see what happens."

And with the amount of change going on in marketing today, it’s a phrase you can’t afford to dismiss. In fact, I could make a case that it’s not only a valid methodology, but maybe the only methodology that really makes any sense in our current environment.

Let’s consider a couple of examples:

First, let’s go out there a bit. Let’s say we’re a major auto company, and we’re planning a Second Life presence. Being a multibillion dollar company, we’re used to 6-month planning phases for websites, so we decide to treat this the same way. Get the internal team together, bring in some consultants, interview some metaverse development companies and ask them what kind of projects they’ve done for big auto companies. Then you start planning, with minute detail about the strategy, type of build, event planning, tech development, PR aspects, and a dozen other big-picture things.

And let’s say you started planning in October, when there was only one other car company in SL and the PR value was huge. And, oh, by the way, Second Life didn’t have a login API at the time, so you couldn’t do a custom entry experience, and it wasn’t open-source, so you couldn’t consider a custom client, and it didn’t have voice, so you couldn’t plan that in, and, oh crap, in the time you spent planning, seven other manufacturers came in, so now the PR value is nil. All of your planning is now hopelessly off-target. You can now jump in with a horribly dated experience, or you can re-plan and re-deploy . . . at which time the rules would have changed again.

Or you could have jumped in, done something to learn the ropes (or even use native talent, like the Pontiac Motorati islands), and been ahead of the seven other manufacturers in Second Life.

"Oho, but you’re talking extreme cases here!" the savvy marketer will say. "Second Life is changing so fast, it doesn’t really count."

Okay, fair enough. So let’s look at something that’s a bit more mainstream:

We were asked to look at an online advertising plan recently and comment on its effectiveness. When our planner saw the spreadsheet, he broke out in gales of laughter. The (very large) agency that had deployed the plan counted the campaign as a success, even though the end result was driving a handful of visitors to a non-commerce website at a cost of about $9 per visit. His comment, "If that’s a success, I wouldn’t like to see a failure."

Now, here’s the thing. The campaign was impeccably researched, hit the right demographic, targeted the right sites, used the right media. There’s no fault with the methodology (except that the campaign was, apparently, never optimized over the course of its 1.5-month deployment).

The fault was in the strategy. For a fun consumer brand that doesn’t sell online, the strategy should have been to get as many people to the site as possible without damaging the brand, because the site has deep content to promote engagement. We would have tested a giveaway program, a contest, and a close-coupled outreach program on broad-reach networks such as BlogAds for the same $230K investment. We would have monitored the campaign and diverted spend to creative and venues that were working best on a weekly basis. And I could almost guarantee response that was 100X greater than the impeccably-researched conventional media campaign.

What it comes down to is this: in an environment of change, trial and error is not only a valid methodology, it’s a smart methodology. Trying a lot of different things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and doing more of what works may be the absolute best way to get excellent results, today and in the future.

Let me say this again: try a lot of different things. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Repeat.

It may sound simple and a little juvenile, but it’ll keep you from planning a social media strategy for a marketing ecosystem that won’t exist by the time your planning is over. It’ll keep you from being locked into the same old media, watching results slowly diminish for a given spend. And it can do it for a relatively small investment. That’s the real power of WTF.

"Wait a minute!" you may be saying. "What about my brand? How do I keep this scattershot approach from damaging my brand?"

Well, first you might want to go and read this, and then take a look at this. People are going to make their own decisions about your brand, using the lens of their own regard. And, hey, participation in some of these leading-edge marketing opportunities could actually reflect positively on your brand, and encourage your audience to embrace you even further.

But that doesn’t mean that giveaway programs, user-generated media, and Second Life are right for every company. It’s a question of sitting down, discussing goals and strategies, and seeing how that fits with your brand.

And that doesn’t take 6 months.

Okay, it’s time for a new phrase: the Lens of the Crowd. Like a parabolic solar concentrator made up of millions of flat mirrors, each focused on a single point, the Lens of the Crowd will be the new watchdog for your brand–and your public persona.

In my post "Googleability = Credibility," I commented on how creating a real, believable, and immediate public persona for yourself will be critical if you want to be "invited to the table" for business in the near future. Since then, I’ve had some people comment "Well, yeah, okay, but what keeps me from creating a persona that’s completely different than my true self? After all, this is even more nebulous than creating an avatar in Second Life. Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong?"

Well, it’s simple: the crowd.

In fact, we’re already seeing the leading edge of this phenomenon. When a large consumer electronics company posted a fake user-created blog last year to increase interest in their new gaming platform, the truth behind it was outed in hours. How? Someone in the crowd sensed the blogs were fake. Whether it was a turn of phrase or a too-professional look, it set someone off on a quest to find the truth. In hours, links to comps of the blogs at a marketing agency were posted in comments on the fake Sony blogs. User opinion took a decidely negative turn, with many readers urging the company to "stick to making products" rather than "playing with bad marketing."

In these days when someone can look up the owner of a website, use Technorati search to cross-reference usernames, go to Google to see if they have any other forum postings, and then activate a community like SomethingAwful or Fark to dig even deeper, it’s time to learn a new marketing reality: if the crowd cares enough about something, they’ll dissect it. And they’ll find the truth.

Today, it’s easy to extend this marketing reality to your own brand. It’s no longer enough to create a brand platform, key messages, a personality, and the vehicles to deliver them. If your users don’t agree with what you’re saying, they’re empowered not only to talk back, but to activate the community to discover the truth–and then, in turn, post it to thousands of blogs. Including your own. Delivering on your brand promise has always been important, but never has the impact been so immediate or extensive as it is today. Months of work can be undone, literally, in hours.

Tomorrow, the lens of the crowd will extend to your own persona. If the crowd cares enough about you, they’ll focus their lens upon you. If you’re a public servant, or a prominent businessperson, or a thought leader, you’d be well-served by ensuring the persona you create today is real, honest, and true.

Because the Lens of the Crowd will only become more powerful.

No, it’s not an expression of frustration. It’s an acronym for Alternate Reality Game.

“What the heck is that, and what does it have to do with marketing?” you might ask.

Let’s start with what it is. You may have glimpsed the edges of alternate reality games, like the seemingly-real websites for fictional companies that appear in Lost. Or you may have even participated in a major ARG yourself, like The Beast promotion for the film A.I.. At its core, an alternate reality game is about creating a network of online and offline media that mesh together to tell a greater story, then letting people online figure it out. Alternate reality games can encompass tens to hundreds of elements, from conspiracy sites to voicemail messages to listings in newspaper classifieds to eBay auctions to tagged photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube. Participants have found these games so compelling that they’ve risked hurricanes to pick up recorded messages on pay phones in Florida.

“Wow, that sounds stupid,” you say. “I don’t see what it’s good for.”

Not so fast. ARGs are real marketing, with real results. For one, ARGs are a way to get hundreds of thousands of eager participants sucked into your message, millions of interested spectators, and the equivalent of tens to hundreds of millions of ad impressions.

But, even more importantly, it’s a way to get your audience to not only accept, but embace, marketing. Consider these comments, taken straight from SomethingAwful, regarding the latest Year Zero alternate reality game:

“I am loving this. One quite scary thing about the Presence that was on the Art is Resistance “forum” wasn’t noted is that when people see the Presence, it follows you. And you get a feeling that it’s watching you perpetually, knowing everything bad you have ever done.”

“I don’t want to say anymore because figuring it out is half the fun but reading every bit of info on this site gave me goosebumps in a very nerdy way.”

“If only all advertising was this cool. I’d be compelled to buy a lot more shit.”

“This is some of the finest marketing I’ve seen in a while.”

And on and on. When someone comes on and says, “Well, but this is just, like, marketing, right?” A whole lot of people jump on him and say, “No no no! This is great, this goes beyond that.” They KNOW this is marketing, and that’s all right!

Let that sink in for a bit.

Now, imagine what an alternate reality campaign might do for you.

Okay. So you think Centric is super-uber-cool and you want to hear more about what we have to say? Well, you’re in luck. Centric personnel are participating in a wide array of speaking opportunities over the next few months:

Virtual Worlds 2007
Jason Stoddard, Speaker
Ken Brady, Attending
March 28-29, 2007
New York, NY

Virtual Hollywood
Jason Stoddard, Organizer
April 5, 2007
Hollywood, CA

Portland Advertising Federation: Second Life Session
Jason Stoddard and Ken Brady, Speakers
April 25, 2007
Portland, OR

Silicon Island Tech Expo
Centric’s Second Talk Featured
Fallon Winnfield, Adam Rakosi, Neko Longduk, and Weasel Gough, Attending
April 20-22, 2007
Silicon Island, Second Life

Marketing Forum: The Next Generation of Marketing: Social and Virtual Media
Jason Stoddard, Speaker
May 9-12, 2007
New York, NY

Would you like to have us at your event? Let us know, and we’ll be happy to help!