Continued from Part 1.

And that seems to be the trend: consider Allison Fass’ recent article for Forbes, “Sex, Pranks and Reality.” In it, she observes that American Apparel’s island is shutting its doors after some vandalism. Fass quotes Erik Hauser of Swivel Media, the agency that handled Wells Fargo’s SL presence, (and which the company abandoned after only four months) who likened a company entering SL as “…the equivalent of running a field marketing program in Iraq.” (Surprisingly, Swivel’s website still touts their work in SL for Wells Fargo).

There are grounds for legitimate criticism, retorts leading SL blogger Wagner James Au in a response to the Forbes article, but Fass’ litany of mistakes misses them. Instead, Au points out no less than ten factual errors, sins of both commission and omission, and leaves the reader with this:

So do these copious errors mean Second Life is a marketers’ paradise? For mass eyeballs, definitely not—several virtual worlds which allow outside advertising are much larger. As a boutique effort to a demographically attractive audience? Maybe, depending on expectations and investment. No one knows for sure. It’s why I’m still hoping a top-flight business magazine like Forbes does the research to generate some meaty answers. But that’ll probably require a reporter who knows what happens when a virtual chopper explodes.

I concur with Au. Part of successful marketing — any successful marketing — is knowing what your goal is before designing your campaign. That includes considerations of audience, channel, and message, but most importantly includes an idea of what constitutes success. Now, I recognize that this isn’t always possible – when entering a technically complex marketplace, sometimes by the seat of the pants is the only possible way to fly. I’m not surprised that SL is suffering a bit of attrition from the business community. But this doesn’t invalidate the points I made previously: growth, good demographic, solid platform, self inoculation.

Come back next Monday for Part 3 … and come see us in Second Life!