MARKETING AND METAVERSE MAYHEM
A couple weeks ago, a marketing company created an official presence for 300, replete with a Spartan courtyard, and free spears and shields for all. This video is one of the unforeseen results, and while it's potentially offensive and not safe for work (unless you work with Matt Stone and Trey Parker), it's most definitely hilarious in a juvenile sort of way. It's also a more vivid demonstration of the promise and perils of marketing in Second Life than anything I could ever write.
Where most virtual worlds are tightly controlled by their holding company, ideal for marketers who prefer docile consumers, SL instead offers an open platform where the audience is more or less free to do exactly what it wishes with your trademarks and brands. Which means a fully open communication channel, potentially rewarding to both sides. It also means guys in boxer shorts and fat butt aliens in loincloths running wild with your IP in bursts of innovative grabass.
This is Sparta. This is also sputum. And if you're a marketer, it's part of the culture you'll need to know about, before coming in. More here.
Only slightly amusing. But I love that song!
Posted by: rikomatic | Monday, April 09, 2007 at 07:56 PM
So a bunch of nincompoops harassing and griefing people is amusing?. Did you pay attention to the video? I could think of better examples of how people borrow stuff and take it in other directions. This example would make the studios only cringe.
Posted by: Ravishal Bentham | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 06:05 AM
Sweet Jesus. . .If I'd have known about that event I'd have put on my ape suit, grabbed a spear and helmet, and killed the wabbit too.
One of the best NWN posts, yet.
Quite to the contrary: Let the mega-corps cringe in their Hollywood playpens.
I think this predicts the best that the future of SL has to offer. Bring on the surrealist nincompoops! They can chase me around and grief me all day long. I'll be there in my ape suit, waiting for 'em.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 01:19 PM
I love that video :))
Advertise to us using the old, culture of television derived, monkey mind at your *PERIL*
But anyone with a sense of humor could make a lot of money in SL.
Posted by: Brenda Archer | Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 09:09 AM