Playboy gets a Second Life and Delta Tweets

About 2 months ago I posted about how I had been having some difficulty putting my head around whether or how virtual worlds like Second Life would develop commercial value, but then I noticed two things.

First, my  7-year old son’s complete engagement in the virtual world of Nicktropolis. In other words, digital natives aren’t going to have nearly the trouble navigating and using the new worlds as the digital immigrants do.

And second, the porn industry was in Second Life. On every street corner, you might say. The porn industry is really good at spotting new distribution opportunities, so I saw this as a sign that real business models might eventually emerge in virtual worlds.  🙂  In the comments to the original post, Adam Zand mentioned that he hadn’t seen any of the big porn players in Second Life.

Well, not anymore. Playboy has announced that it is opening up shop in Second Life (AdRants via Spin Thicket).

Guaranteed: Playboy will figure out how to make real dollars from Second Life. Folks who are interested in the potential value of virtual worlds as marketing spaces should pay attention to what they do. We may lag by a number of years in terms of our audiences being in Second Life and other worlds, but by the time my son is a potential (legal) visitor to Playboy’s virtual mansion, I’m pretty certain just about everybody will be. Start paying attention now.

And in other social media news, Delta is apparently twittering. And with a human, not robotic corporate-speak, voice. Joe Jaffe has a great recap of the conversation so far. He closes his post with a series of questions, the most important of which is:

Is this (or should this be considered as) the voice of "the brand"? Does it speak as an "official agent" of the company? And if not, does it matter?

If not, does it matter? That’s the most interesting bit of all. I don’t think it matters at all.

Marketers the world over may wish that the brand equaled the construct we create with official communications, but we do know that isn’t the case.

A brand is the sum of our experiences with a product, with a company. The official communications, like advertising, product manuals, packaging and customer service,  and the quasi- or unofficial ones, like interactions with company employees, on and off the clock. If you personally know or have a positive exchange with someone, you are going to add that interaction into your measurement of that brand. The same is true if you have a bad experience. Even if the negative interaction is not in the work context. It is one of the reasons that people who wear recognizable work uniforms are expected to adhere to  codes of conduct while in uniform, even when not on duty.

So it doesn’t matter whether "deltaairlines" on Twitter is official or not. What matters is that the persona is engaging with other Twits in a meaningful, positive way. More than likely, those folks will add these good twitting experiences into their calculation of the Delta brand. The product delivery — air travel — still has to live up to the promise, but if it does, this tweeting might accelerate a shift in overall brand perceptions among a key audience for the airline (Twits tend to be travelers).

This is actually a useful way for companies to use Twitter. Beyond seeing who is around for lunch or tapping into the collective expertise on an issue.

Twitter is a more informal channel of communication. If we accept that it doesn’t have to be an "official spokesperson" speaking from on high (in fact, it is much better if it isn’t), then companies can use this conversation to have that quasi-official interaction with their customers. Find out what they care about. Make them feel good about the company. Put a more human "face" on the company.

But it only works this way if we are willing to let it be an informal conversation. You can’t switch back and forth from informal voice to official statement. It would be too confusing. 

Personally, I’d prefer that companies not use Twitter and other short form spaces for official announcements. Let Twitter et al be informal, public backchannels where we can chat with brand ambassadors without expectation. Let the long form spaces like blogs and Web sites and news releases do the heavy lifting on official statements.

Then we can be pleased surprised and flattered when our informal conversation changes or improves something in a product or company we love.

Wow. If this works, Twitter might be useful after all.

Tags: Second Life, Twitter, virtual worlds, Delta, Delta Airlines