Iris Rants: Advertising Your Second Life Event Without Second Life Images Sends A Bad Message

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

One of my biggest pet peeves in the world of metaverse fashion is when event organizers choose to advertise their Second Life event without any Second Life imagery. Sometimes they'll use stock photos, sometimes they'll use clip art, sometimes it's beautiful artwork like the picture above. This picture certainly seems thematically appropriate, but it just doesn't get the job done as well as a picture of the actual event or any of the items that will actually be there would. Here's why:

[Disclaimer: I have nothing against the Fantasy Gacha Carnival. I love gacha events, and I'm sure this is a solid one. I'm using this image to illustrate my point purely because it is one of the more recent and prominent examples. FGC opens next week and you can check out their slightly NSFW Flickr stream to see more.]

First of all, these ads don't tell me much about the event. This particular example tells me what it's called and when it is, and I guess what the theme is, but beyond that there's no indication of who or what will be found there. I was actually rather surprised when I took a look at some of the items that will be available-- gorean pasties, medieval bucklers, and chair bondage sets are not exactly the kinds of things I would associate with a fantasy Halloween carnival, and the image chosen for the ad only reinforced those expectations. So right off the bat, it's unhelpful.

Generally speaking, using images that don't have anything to do with your location, your participants, or the items that will be available there is an easy way to produce advertising and spread the word before any of those things are even close to being ready... But that's always the first thing I see when this kind of ad is presented. This is the dirty secret behind most events in SL, but it's certainly not something you want to reflect in your ad. You want to look coordinated and prepared, and you want to give potential customers a good idea of what they can expect. There isn't enough stock art in the world to do that for you.

What's the best way to get around this? Plan ahead. The best thing you can do is make an arrangement with either one of the participating designers or the person who will be building the space, to have one item or one section done a few weeks in advance for promotional purposes. It's a particularly good deal for the designer, because it will immediately single that item out and make people associate it with the event, which could easily boost their sales.

But there's another problem with SL ads using non-SL pictures that needs to be addressed: They frequently use someone else's work without their permission. Note that I'm not saying this is the case with the Fantasy Gacha Carnival, but speaking in terms of broader trends. There have been countless examples of event organizers doing a quick Google Image Search and picking their ad's base image from among the results. Flagrantly ignoring copyright isn't going to earn you many customers, or friends. It's just not worth it, and you will almost inevitably be called out, since reverse Google image searches are incredibly easy and take less than a second to execute. Copyright is a very sensitive issue in SL, and if the organizers of an event don't respect it, it not only reflects poorly on them, but also on the event and even its participants.

So just... Stop. Stop it. Please. The whole point of these things is to show me precisely why I should visit your event, not why I should Google the same thing you did to get myself a new desktop wallpaper.

That's my take, but what's yours? Do you think these kinds of event promos aren't a big deal, or do they get under your skin, too? Let me know in the comments!

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Cara]

I think part of what your missing though is that organizers need a picture for the event made up before 90% or so of merchants will get involved. I know personally I'm a snob, if the event poster looks bad I typically skip it and won't take part. So expecting organizers to have a poster together that involves actual items from the event ahead of time is a bit skewed of an idea in my opinion.

[Madeline Blackbart]

Normally I'd agree here but the fgc DOES show pictures of ALL of the gatcha items on there site. IMO if you at least show the products as they become available to show there is not real issue if your picture to start is not in SL.

[A.J.]

I agree.

Like putting a picture of Michael 5 in my SL profile and saying "wow, isn't my avatar hot?"

Put your best in the advertising, but make sure your best exists.

[Achariya Maktoum]

I respectfully disagree. I think you might be misunderstanding the owner's use of the word "fantasy." In this case, it means a certain fictional genre -- so Gor and elf ears and swords and horns, etc., are quite in keeping with the theme. They've also done a great job with keeping up their Flickr site (which the site links to) that fairly represents the theme.

[Eddi Haskell]

I totally agree Iris. Why would anyone destroy the appeal of their inworld event by showing anything but images from our gorgeous, sexy, well proportioned, increasingly realistic, and uniquely satisfying environment of Second Life? One more thing for A.J. -- do you think Michel 5 is really that hot? I just pulled up images of him and he looks like a plastic cadaver. Maybe I'm missing something lol.

[karma]

I'm actually quite impressed with the organization that has gone into this event.. And if a Teaser-Poster is the primary complaint towards FGC, then that's not too shabby!

Being able to have an event (or even a section) set up months ahead of time before they start sending out the poster is not only expensive (with land-costs) but very impractical. In order to have pictures of what will be displayed, you're asking very busy designers to take time out, create something months ahead of time and have it sitting there.. waiting for the event to actually start.

As a previous commenter said, the blog and flickr have been kept updated far ahead of time.. So if you're inclined to see what *type* of fantasy items you can find at this Gacha carnival, you can just take a peek there.
<3

[A.J.]

Eddi: interesting point about Michael 5. So my concept of perfection didn't really "wow" you?

Of course, I agree with your comment. We come to SL to get what we can't have in RL, not to see what we can't have in SL.

[Klempt]

I agree.

Firstly, I am never, ever a fan of people using pictures that belong to other things, or are from other people's artwork without any form of permission.

Secondly, posters always give out first impressions, and this poster didn't cut it until I actually read the text...but even then. I was half expecting steampunk/fantasy gacha themed like Guild wars' engineers or something due to the poster base itself.

What I would suggest is to re-conceptualize the gacha's message given by the gacha event and re-do the poster's image with more 'FANTASY' in mind, and perhaps use something that isn't someone else's artwork without permission.

I will admit, the event itself is very good. I didn't expect it until bloggers came up and showed me what stores were in it. But to be honest, as much as it is good, the poster is still pretty bad. Perhaps they could use a bit of an upgrade, maybe?

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

I must agree with Ms. Ophelia. I would like to see ads with graphics featuring items that will actually be there or the site as it actually appears in Second Life. If I arrive and what I see isn't what the ad promises, I feel that I've been the victim of "bait and switch", and will probably go on my way.

[Merit Coba]

I find it strange people use outside art because there are a lot of artists that can do the same thing equally well or better with Second Life resources. Just to name a few I happened to have blogged about:
Wheeler Oppewall, Lady Velvet Rose, Sil Brandi, Tess Fallworth, Thea Maiman, Sina Souza and Meryll Panthar. And that is just a random selection. Perhaps some of the artist are not suitable, but I bet some of them make imagery that look very similar in style to the one above.
So what is the problem of using Artists that make art using Second Life?

[2103]

it's a teaser ad, not a vendor ad...huge difference

[jusa]

It's not a bad message, it's just incredibly poor advertising. User sees a fake image that looks nice and stylized, you show up to the event, the event doesn't look like, doesn't represent, doesn't even have the atmosphere of the event; user doesn't wait for the event to even rez before they haul it out of the sim.
It's akin to giving disney clip art for a carnival that's in a walmart parking lot. It's not the same thing. Second life can be beautiful enough without having to be a phoney bait and switcher. And this is about every bad ad I see on the events listing(which I really need to find the setting to turn off when I log in).

[Up4 Dawes]

Interesting reading what people determine to them is a quality event. There are many reasons not to show items as organizers actually know but appears people are confusing events with catalogs or the market place.I can say I haven't seen too many bait and switch places and most organizers do take pride in their events and considering all are free to attend I think any consumer outrage should be held in check until there a actual consumer involved. I don't think we need to dumb down already the free stuff and offer risk free teleporting. Part of the fun of SL is searching and finding out for oneself the surprises and uniqueness of events.