Ophelia's Gaze: Advertising That Works, Made In Japan

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL

Every now and then I'm amazed by some of the clever marketing techniques that are employed in Second Life, either by residents or by RL companies that are dipping their toes in the pool. I was absolutely blown away over the weekend by a joint effort between Mod's Hair Paris, BALS TOKYO, and NTT DoCoMo. These three real world groups (specializing in hair care and styling, chic furniture and home accessories, and mobile phone services. respectively) have found a way to make us look at all of their products, while rewarding us with something we actually want in SL-- fabulous hair.

The basics of this promotion involve BALS TOKYO'€™s furniture store and Mod'€™s Hair Paris'€™ hair salon. In the furniture store (SLURL teleport this link), you go through each set looking for Smart Mobile 705i mobile phones by NTT DoCoMo that have been scattered around. When you click on the phone, you get a copy. There are 13 phones total for you to find. Once you find all of the phones, you walk across a bridge to the salon (SLURL). There you'€™ll find six mannequin heads with wigs, three for women and three for men. You can click on each wig to receive it, as many times as you want. This will only work if you have all 13 phones, however. If you have trouble finding them, Dpende Control has thoroughly documented where each phone can be found.

While the scavenger hunt side of this was a fun little distraction, I was incredibly impressed by the quality of the items. The hairstyles themselves are more than worth the trouble. Realistic texturing and use of sculpties make these hairstyles easily some of the most well made in all of Second Life, and they're free in exchange for a little bit of advertising. I am still a little upset, however, that the furniture isn'€™t available for purchase. It's another example of the exceptional care that the developers of this project took in its creation.

This appears to be a Japanese initiative, which doesn't exactly surprise me after the Creators Stamp Rally that happened this past December. This involved carrying a prim card and going to each of the participating stores. These store had stamp kiosks set up, which you could click on to have that store'€™s unique stamp appear on your card. Filled out cards could then be taken to the Event Hall, where you would rez the card on one of the vendors. It would suck the card in, and then allow you to chose one of several prizes. I am amazed by how ingenious this promotion was (and naturally I was excited to see so much new traffic flowing through some of my favourite Japanese shops). By using some very high-quality freebie incentives and some very creative scripting, they managed to expose people to about 20 different stores that they may never have been aware of otherwise.  By the way, if you're feeling sore about missing the rally, there'€™s another one planned for August.

Companies similar to Mod's Hair and Smart Mobile have come into SL before, with very different approaches. TELUS Mobility, for instance, opened a store with virtual versions of their most popular phones as avatar accessories. AVEDA has also been present in SL for some time, through a series of hairstyles created by Elikapeka Tiramisu of ETD. In both cases, their products are sold like any other SL product, but with real life advertising at the core.

So who gets the better end result in all this? It's certainly an interesting topic for debate, and while I can't answer it myself, I can say that I now know the names of 13 Smart Mobile phones by heart.

Iris Ophelia covers and creates metaverse style for New World Notes.  Visit her blog for a view at the source.

Comments

[Calixus Voom]

Being bald as an avatar it is not as much the hair that impresses mebut the design of the place. One of those things where the humble-homebrew-builder-who-is-not-the-anyday-art-director comes to kneel and admit " I am unworthy!" :)

[Telus Cell Phones]

Telus Mobility opened a store with virtual versions of the most popular href="http://www.tomharriscellular.ca">Telus Cell Phones as avatar accessories.