Most of the time I’m in the same camp as Ian Schafer in just not quite “getting” Second Life. I think most of that comes not from my being slow or close minded. I just don’t think I’ve seen a compelling reason to be in Second Life, either as a person or as a brand.

But one execution that I do “get” is Coca-Cola’s “Virtual Thirst” promotion in-world. Instead of creating a big, fancy store, or island that looks great in screenshots but doesn’t actually do anything, Coke is actually trying to add to the Second Life experience. Coke (and its agency crayon, which has a couple people you might have heard of working for it) worked with the SL community to create an experience that actually adds value to the community.

One of the biggest components of the project is the request for SL residents to create a “vending experience.” More specifically, people are asked to figure out how they would vend an experience. People can submit their ideas using words, pictures or video. The winner will then see his or her idea executed by some Second Life experts.

Reasons I love this program:

  • People need to be creative – always a good thing
  • Started the conversation early by using in-world testers
  • Creates something new for the environment
  • Has the potential for multiple plays – they could run this once every three months and it wouldn’t get old

You can check out Jaffe, Hobson, Chapman and crayon itself for more details but I’m definitely going to be checking out the project next time I’m in-world just to see how things are progressing.

One thought on “Bringing the real to Second Life

  1. As the project lead on this initiative I’m psyched to hear that you are excited by it.

    One thing I like to stress to people is that this is more about imagination then Second Life. Second Life was the chosen platform to build in, but we want people to use their imaginations.

    My hope is that people who have not even heard of Second Life, but who enjoy the Coca-Cola brand will submit ideas as well.

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