NIssan's Marketing Program in VRChat Could Learn Some Hard Earned Lessons from Second Life

"VRChat has much of the same discovery issues that've plagued Second Life," notes Adeon Writer, a denizen of both worlds, responding to my observation that Nissan's VRChat  marketing campaign doesn't seem to attract many visitors. "Mainly, as there are more and more places to visit, it becomes harder and harder to become discovered and retain attention from so many other possible places you could be. I don't think Second Life ever managed to solve this in a meaningful way. VRChat hasn't yet either."

That sounds very right. Also (I should add) as sub-communities in virtual worlds become more and more cloistered, it becomes an even more difficult challenge for outside marketers to engage with the world's user base as a whole. That seems to be happening in VRChat as well.

Reader and SLer Kaylee West has some solid ideas Nissan could do well to learn from:

"A big company like Nissan needs to do some big events (live music, some free giveaways, some purchasable merch) that are well promoted via social media channels, with maybe a few key social media influencers involved. They also need to do / repeat these events for different time zones. Then they need to think about ongoing activities in their world to attract people back. Other than the cost of hiring acts, the costs to the company wouldn't necessarily add up to big money. What are the really popular worlds doing to attract and keep visitors that they can learn from?"'

To that last question, a Discord server like the kind popular VRChat creator Jar runs would be a great idea. An even more obvious campaign idea is to make Nissan cars playable across the world, as with the RC cars created by this other VRChat creator.

Comments

[lkosov]

The virtual-world balkanization problem - sub-communities becoming more cloistered, more isolated - is (at least) a quarter-century old (Trekkies et al in very early MOOs); by this point I think it's more a feature than a bug, honestly.

There's absolutely no reason a car company... any company, really... couldn't make ads targeting popular online sub-communities. Sexy slow pan shots of a minivan at night, the Milky Way and perhaps Aurora Borealis visible in the sky behind it. Throughout the pan shots, text and arrows appear on screen, pointing out various desirable features of the van. As the camera pans around to the front of the vehicle, and the manufacturer's logo on the grill conveniently becomes prominently visible, someone that sounds a lot like Barry White says softly "Live long and prosper with the all-new 2022 Subaru Ascent: ready for all your away missions, near and far."

There's a certain nonprofit foundation that has a sim in SL, which they decorate seasonally and hold a big fundraiser event in every quarter, I think. It's not hugely popular, but it's reasonably well-visited even when there are no events going on, in part (I think) because they cram all sorts of fun little things into the corners of their sim. A tiki bar, a campsite, a couple romantic little seaside rendezvous spots for couples, and what they bill as SL's best roller coaster.

I'm not saying Nissan should install a lounge of couches with sexytime animations... or a rollercoaster... but it seems fairly self-evident they'd benefit from giving people non-car-related reasons to visit, and stay. Bowling alley, where you bowl a 150 or more and get a free piece of seasonally-themed branded apparel, the giveaway changing every month? A dance club where the floor is lit entirely by the controllable, color-changing headlights of Nissans suspended from the ceiling, where live DJs play sets every weekend? I'm sure they could come up with something that would get people both talking, and coming back, if they tried.

[Pulsar]

Given how many people enjoy the adventures of "Drivers of SL", they could take advantage of that group and sponsor it, it may be a win-win scenario. They can offer virtual cars as reward (that's what SL car makers do with DSL), even better partner or hire some of those SL car makers to make them. They may offer tracks connected to the mainland roads for DSL. Also Drivers of SL enjoy camping, not the SL avatar camping to get a couple of L$ per n minutes, I mean actual camping simulation with your virtual car and trailers and tents. Nice to socialize and to make new friends.
And there they could have contests of any kind. I don't mean the typical dressing contests that you see in SL dance clubs, let's thing out of that box: tell around the world that we, Nissan, give you a virtual car in Second Life, that you can drive, but you can texture it and the best ones will receive prizes from Nissan or maybe the best one would be painted for real on a real car? There are so many possibilities.