Tor Myhren, Leo Burnett Detroit - pontiac campaign in SL.
Key to solstice GXP is: faster than a Porsche. We're faster and cheaper than you. This car empowers people because it's affordable. It's a democratization of speed. We got interested in SL, decided not to jump in right away, learned the culture, we tried talking to Linden Labs and they said no we just sell the land don't talk to us (laughs) No I'm just kidding they helped us alot. We really learned from Millions of Us.
There was a backlash when we introduced the free car, it screwed up the car economy because people were already making and selling cars they had made. We began to understand the rules of engagement.
We decide to build a 96 acre island, to become the center of car culture on SL. MySpace has 100,000 diferent car clubs, let's be the hub on Second Life.
We had a landapaloza and gave away all the land on the island. We said send us a proposal, we'll give you free land. The only thing we built was a dealership to sell our cars, and a racetrack to test drive. and let people build what they want to build. Let them be the creators.
(shows awesome video - has JayZee perform on pontiac stage. Has a dealership, a racetrack. A store with race-track inspired fashion. Proceeds from their car sales go to EFF. Much of it user-created.) "This isn't controlled or contrived."
Right off the bat the PR covered our investment. How do you sell real cars in the fake world? We got incredible PR. People ask, "how did we sell it to the client?" One is we have a really creative client, it would be nice to have more clients out there. Two, the brand was hungry. We wanted to force the watchers to reappraise the brand. You can't cause that surprise and force reappraisal without something like a VW. The Oprah effect, we gave away cars, we got about $110 M worth of media exposure out of that. And then cost, not sure how many of you have worked on car advertising. TV ads are expensive, the total cost of this is just over the production costs alone of one car ad. And media, that doesn't even cover the broadcasting time. And what's the last car ad you remember anyway? Plus this was right for our brand. Adult, progressive, demographically it was right for the brand.
2.1 milion visits, 30K unique viotrs, the 96 acres is full, we're oping up more land.. We've sold 1200 solstices in second life. What about real cars? I have no idea to be honest. I don't think that for this that is the point. This is brand marketing. In a "new school" environment. You either agree or you don't. We've talked a lot about ROI, this is obviously not a classic ROI case. Does it sell cars tomorrow? No. Does it sell it in the future? I think so. If your first exposure to pontiac is here, you might consider it later. I guarantee you that when people come across this, they think of pontiac in a different way than they did before, and that is the point. We overanalyze data because we have the data. There is something to be said for marketing where you use your gut. I hate the micro-measurable environment, counting clicks every hour isn't necessarily the way to make people appreciate and love your brand. There are not a lot of brands out there that people love. We don't take time to create relationships, when the sale is over and the banner ads are down, you have to leave your consumer with something that matters. We did that. They talk about us in a new way. A new audience that would not have happened with traditional media.
For the Jayzee conference, we put 4 sims, we got about 100 people, we put the stage on the convergence of the 4 sims, we were sold out immediately.
pntiac sneak peak party - we unveiled the car early - that's when it really started to hit me, you can really do some cool stuff between the real world and Second Life.
Now on pontiac, you can join second life right from that portal now.
I've been listening for the past couple days and I have some opinions. Let me offer a sobering thought, though I absolutely believe this is a great place to interact with your consumers. 1.5 years ago we launched the first solstice on the apprentice, sight unseen, an hourlong advertisement for our car, we sold out 1000 cars, we sold them out in the first 40 minutes.
We launched the solstice GXP on Second Life, it took us 4 months to sell as many cars. Obviously there's a huge gap and a log way to go. If that's the kind of numbers you're gonna look at, it's not the right place to go for you. It's coming but it's not happening that fast.
It's a ridiculous argument to do the whole avatar/real life thing. Maybe your avatar in real life, although it doesn't look like you, but it's still you.
You love paris hilton, you wear prada. In real life you're a chubby brunette, in Second Life you are a petite blonde with an adorable little alcohol addiction. It's still you. Our avatars are aspirational. A person is a person is an avatar.
Adweek article - 70% of Sl residents are turned off by advertisers. 99% of real life people are turned off by advertisers. So we're doing pretty well!
If you do something good, you will turn people on. Is it still your brand if it's user generated content? Today you don't really own the brand, you curate the brand. You find like-minded people and create a conversation with those people, and they become a part of your brand personality.
We ran this ad - instead of saying pontiac.com we said google pontiac. We gave them the option to come to us or learn more from wherever. I hold the reins.
We got hugely more traffic. Spiked our online hits severely.
Bring Linden a good idea, they're not marketing people and not thinking about it. Say you want to be on your platform, this will help you make it better.
This is a media revolution going on. The creative aspect has a long way to go to catch up with the technology.
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