Greenies Gets 100K Visitors, L'Oreal Sponsorship (Updated)

Recently UK studio Rezzable sent out word that Greenies, their universally acclaimed Second Life funhouse of adorable aliens in a giant house, had just counted its 100,000th unique visitor-- fairly impressive and steady traffic for a region that opened last July.  Of those who visited, Rezzable CEO RightAsRain Rimbaud estimates about 5,000 have purchased Greenies items.  "In the last 7 months," he tells me, "we have about 11,000 transactions for more than $L25." 

On a visit last week, I was surprised to see they had made an even larger transaction, this one of a mixed reality kind: without much fanfare, cosmetics giant L'Oreal Paris had become part of the Greenies universe, and a client of Rezzable.  You only realize this after hovering down to a house-sized lady's purse, and discovering copies of virtual L'Oreal products waiting there for you to grab.  Since joining Greenies in late December, Rimbaud says Greenies visitors have claimed thousands of these-- an impressive clickthrough rate, so to speak.

It's a strikingly fresh approach to real world advertising in Second Life. (And speaking of which, I should disclose that Rezzable briefly advertised on this SL blog.)  Up to now, the standard practice has been to create and launch an SL site fully branded with the real world advertiser's logos and trademarks.  Here, instead, the client's product is subtly (and playfully) introduced into an already popular site.

Rimbaud tells me this was their strategy from Greenies' inception: "I think first issue was to generate the traffic and understand why people enjoy virtual world areas," he tells me. Rezzable's many sites are also attracting thousands of visitors a day.  "Now that we have some ideas on traffic flow we can create cost-effective advertising programs that leverage SL and also reach out across the web."

Better known for its ultra-glamorous (if traditional) magazine spreads and TV spots, it's quite a shift to see the famed brand suddenly showing up in a wacky place like Greenies. "I think L'Oreal was very smart in seeing the Greenies area as a place to connect with engaged SL residents," Rimbaud argues. "We don't have any porno, gambling or camping--so people at Greenies are there to explore and discover things... So now L'Oreal has gained credibility with many, many early adopters who will share a view on them as being modern, hip and appealing to a dynamic audience."

Update, 11:17pm: In Comments, Rezzable's Pavig Lok says the L'Oreal campaign has ended, and has some very interesting thoughts.

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

amazing. a woman's product company buys in to sl as female participation heads steadily downward approaching 25%. i applaud them for being intelligent about the approach. maybe there is a way to turn SL around away from the boy toy market.

[csven]

"we have about 11,000 transactions for more than $L25."

Did exchange rates just suddenly change while I was gone?

[Faerie]

Another shining example of a company that "Gets SL".
L'Oreal has had several promotions in SL that have impressed me and shown they understand how to use SL to promote themselves successfully (either that or they are clever enough to find someone who does and listen to them - which is the same thing in the end) and are not just sitting in a big empty sterile island complaining that SL is a failure.

[theshadowinsl]

Well even if the women are going down in sheer numbers... They do make up the largest percent of residents that actively partake in the world... Or at least for every guy I know I know 4 women... And fashion is very much designed around women in SL because they buy stuff... Why market to people who won't buy...?

[Ninoramai Hax]

I was one of those 100,000 unique visitors. Greenies is arguably one of the best builds in SL. I am encouraged by the inworld not-in-your-face advertising model that they are establishing here.

I am curious however how L'Oreal anticipates this advertising will translate into real world sales. Is it merely an effort to build brand awareness or a first step in some sort of revenue generation plan.

[Pavig Lok]

Contrary to the assertion that females in SL are dwindling towards 25% participation, their number appears to be in a rising trend over the last year ( http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxbDc4B2FH96NzYTkCnb-SA&gid=11 ) and they have consistently spent more time in world than males. I don't think there's much evidence in the stats that women are leaving.

As for L'Oreal "anticipating this advertising translating into real world sales" we may be missing the point. Brands like L'Oreal are already so well known that traditional brand awareness isn't their only concern. Their advertising seems to be about brand ubiquity. Sponsorship of fashion shows, and other such soft marketing are already part of their approach, and cement their place within our environment as something larger than their revenue generating product alone. Small scale projects like this, or fashion shows etc, erode negative perceptions of a "faceless multinational corporation". They are making themselves available at a local level.

This approach has also worked for some of the other larger corporates, such as IBM. While they have occasionally copped some flak for things, their mere presence in SL has given them a sense of being available to us as residents. There is currency in this, both in world and out, as it marks them as progressive, inclusive, and at the frontier. In the words of communications folk, it is "engagement with your publics" - which may sound strange, but hey that's their jargon for it.

Unfortunately now the L'Oreal promotion is over and their free skins have been removed. My impression was that the promotion worked well as a low key element of the sim - awareness and engagement by visitors seemed consistent and the word of mouth factor was very high.

In one way you can't ask for better advertising than word of mouth - every company wants to be the name on the lips of the public because you know more people are talking about you than you would reach other ways. It is cost effective. If you advertise in a magazine every single printed page costs you money, and not every advetisement even gets seen, so you are also paying to advertise to folk who don't get your message.

By comparison, for every visitor we had who picked up the free skins via a word of mouth recomendation, many more would have been informed of them by someone and not sought them out. Contrary to traditional push media metrics, this approach informs more folk than we count rather than less. We don't wonder how many of our ads hit the bin unviewed, but how many folk know about the campaign that we haven't even seen.

It may take time to assess the value of this new approach to advertising in virtual worlds, but I think it's a good start. After all it's based on sound real world marketing principles: get your message out where it isn't, don't overbake and annoy folk with it, do it in a positive way people are comfortable with, free stuff helps.

Well that's my two cents, but I'm only the builder, so bosses may think different.

[Nic Mitham]

K Zero created and developed the overall campaign for L'Oreal Paris, including the placement of products into the Greenies Kitchen, after negotiation with Rezzable.

The 'super-sized' handbag and products were part of a wider campaign that included the promotion of selected skins and shapes into existing retailers such as Calla, Nicky Ree and Lassitude & Ennui. Taking this approach (of utilising existing footfall and customers of estalished shops) meant from day one were were able to leverage a distribution channel as opposed to start from scratch and create one - like the majority of real-world brands in SL.

One element we felt would work well would be the creation of some of the real-world products used in the make-up looks and place them into a natural environment, albeit one on a gigantic scale - The Kitchen.

On an overall basis, the campaign has worked extremely well for L'Oreal Paris because the mechanism was a 'pull' as opposed to a 'push'. Now we have thousands of skins being used by residents as well as a high level of feedback and user generated content in the form of snapshots of people wearing the skins.

[RightAsRain]

Thanks again to Nic at K-Zero for organizing the L'Oreal campaign. It can be really hard for corporates to figure out their best approach to SL/Virtual Worlds and they can really benefit from working with companies like K-Zero that really get it and know how to make an impact.

[Kathy]

Fascinating site and well worth the visit. I will be back

[john]

Cool!.. Nice work...