Filed under: News and developments by Digado

Mercedes leaves Second Life, but on a positive note, at least according to their latest (and presumably last) blogpost. I myself can’t help but think Mercedes just threw a lot of money at riding the ‘Second Life hype wave’ - pick up some blog attention and show a little innovation (many car brands did follow), but eventually found the attention depleted, and could not muster the creativity to actually be remarkable themselves:

“A little over a year, Mercedes-Benz opened its dedicated presence in the virtual world of ‘Second Life’. Since the launch of the brand’s virtual island, we won several vital insights and received plenty of positive feedback, especially for our unique communications policy. Over the course of the year, our brand avatar ‘Mercedes Milestone’ led more than 10,000 inspired dialogues.”

Mercedes ‘dedicated’ presence consisted of an island with a racing track (I think at the time they made it this was still an original concept - sort of), a showroom, a somewhat broken golf game, a concert, and most noticeably - free, copyable versions of their mercedes cars latest models. Yes. Free Mercedeses with no value whatsever except you could drive in it. Now lets look how this could have possibliy fit their strategy.

When I think of Mercedes:

• Quality
• German craftsmanship
• Status
• Expencive
• Exclusive

Now what happens when we think of a free car you can hand out to anyone, and does nothing but drive, when we compare this to the vastly better (creative) cars out there in Second Life, created by involved users:

• Cheap/free
• Un-imaginative
• Nothing we haven’t seen before
• Common
• Branded, commercial junk

That’s the car that is supposed to be the ‘bees knees’ - top of line…

Here is what I would have done differently. Everyone a little aware of the history of Second Life knows about the Starax wand, an extremely expencive (the most expencive item in Second Life at the time it was still available), extremely cool thing to have (“The fact is, no must-have list is complete without Starax’s wand.” -SL insider). A real rarity, a symbol of status and definetly remarkable. Even his new series of statues, each priced at roughly $100, $250 real dollars are these kind of symbols for status. If you own one of these, it means you’ve been doing well for yourself in Second Life - does this remind you of any kind of concept in ‘First’ Life?

Why not make one car, price it a rediculous amount per unit, say… $50 (real money, 13,500 linden dollars) but make it worth every penny. As said before, there are ample examples of creative vehicles out there, there was definitely room for innovation here (if they where really as ‘dedicated’ as they claim in their next to empty blog - last post before ’signing of’ dates from 08-2007). Make it the CAR everyone is talking about (note, not the brand, the brand should follow the car)- if not for its innovation for the sheer price, the car you HAVE to see… see but can’t touch - because that’s the reality, and the image of Mercedes you want it to have.

MindBlizzard gives a warning to Linden Labs, but I’d like to extend this warning to brands that come to Virtual Worlds with portfolio islands and think they stir the conversation by handing out freebies with their logo on them with a little message said much better by Seth Godin: “No one cares about you and your brand”. In other words, get involved or go home.

Posted on: March 19, 2008 | Share on: