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Advertising 2.0

Marketing needs to get a life 

Comments:7   Add your comment

2193209

I suppose it was always inevitable that one of Brand Republic's bloggers would test the limits of Haymarket's commitment to the principles of Web 2.0, I just didn't realise it was me that would end up doing it.

What's prompted this is Claire Murphy's editorial in Marketing today, on the subject of Second Life, this passage in particular:

But even the cynics find it difficult to argue with the numbers, particularly those that illustrate its booming popularity. In the middle of February, Second Life had 3m users. Just three weeks later, a further 1.3m people had logged on - a tipping point by anyone's standards.

I presume this was based on Linden Labs recent release of 'key metrics'. However, this is just shoddy journalism. Anyone with even a passing interest in Second Life and what it means for marketing will be aware that this is just not true.

I refer you to Clay Shirky's widely referenced post on the subject. Or this follow up post. Or let's face it, the basic concept of "fact checking" which surely Claire or her editor, Craig Smith, should have learnt in the first year of their journalism courses.

Don't get me wrong, Second Life is interesting (in fact I used the Pontiac and Mazda examples yesterday in a presentation to Peugeot), but it really isn't worthy of the hype and bandwagon jumping that was happening towards the end of last year, let alone Marketing's ridiculous act of closing of the stable doors once the horse has already bolted...

Anyway, welcome to Web 2.0.

Published Mar 14 2007, 12:36 AM by Robin Grant
Filed under: , ,

Comments

by Gordon Macmillan
March 14, 2007 11:01 AM
 
I think it’s a interesting post, but over the top. It isn’t fact checking you're talking about, they have done that with the use of available stats, which is fair enough. What you are talking about is an interpretation of those figures - something quite different. I think your post should reflect that and be more measured. Do you not think so?
 
 
by R WALKER
March 14, 2007 11:05 AM
 
I agree, in fact i have blogged on this subject also (http://luddites-or-laggards.blogspot.com/2007/03/is-there-point-to-second-life.html) There is an attraction which I can see for some people but the area I am struggling to justify is for Businesses to spend time trying to enter this virtual world - not just in a promotional sense but in terms of interacting. Surely efforts are better spent elsewhere.
 
 
by Philip Smith
March 14, 2007 11:59 AM
 
We could argue for a while about where it is best to spend budgets online - indeed there may be an agency or two which might suggest the answer. The issue I have is about timing - it's been a nasty habit for parts of the digital sector to gripe about laggards, or second movers, jumping on bandwagons with digital. Yet they will also complain about brands not getting 'it'. Surely, Marketing should be applauded for trying something new and learning from the process. There are a few, long established, ways of marketing business magazines and anything that opens up a new opportunity - whether you question the figures, motive or execution - should be welcomed.
 
 
by Craig Smith
March 14, 2007 12:15 PM
 
Robin, you have clearly had too much caffeine this morning. For a start, the 'dare you to publish this' approach was old hat in print journalism before the advent of the internet, never mind Web 2.0. Your views are neither controversial enough to afford you the thrill of removing them, nor lucid enough to add much to the discussion about what a relevant metric surrounding Second Life may be. For the benefit of readers of this thread, likely to be confused by your initial post, you are pouring scorn on the idea that Second Life sign-ups are a relevant measure and that only regular users (within the past 3 months) should be counted. It is rather a pedestrian point of view. Many marketers will have the vision to see that the act of signing up to Second Life is a positive engagement with the nascent technology of virtual worlds - they may 'churn' for reasons ranging from limitations in home or office computing or because there simply isn't enough interesting 'content' to bring them back - both factors that history, and other technologies, have shown us change rapidly. I am reminded that, more than 50 years after the advent of commercial TV, the key audience measure still can't tell us whether the 'viewer' is actually in the room. Would Robin get equally over-excited about the irrelevance of BARB, NRS, ABCs? Of broadband penetration, or mobile phone ownership? As far as I am aware these headline figures continue to be used as the basis for some significant strategic and investment decisions.
 
 
by Robin Grant
March 14, 2007 1:30 PM
 
Hi Craig - I appreciate you responding to me directly (and yes, perhaps I did have too much caffeine this morning). However, my main point was not about whether Second Life sign-ups are a relevant measure (I have to say I agree with the points regarding this and the others you make in your comment). What I continue to take issue with is Claire's statement "In the middle of February, Second Life had 3m users". This is open to interpretation, but most reasonable people would (I think) take this to mean "during some undetermined period during the middle of February, Second Life had 3m people log-in to the service". This isn't true. A more accurate statement would have been "from the launch of Second Life to the middle of February, 3m accounts had been created". So what are the figures for unique users? Second life itself reports on its stats page (http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php) that only 1,052,344 "Residents Logged-In During Last 30 Days". Also note that 'Residents' means unique user accounts, not unique users, as people obviously can have more than one account in Second Life (I've no idea how prevalent this is, but you get my point). Even if you assume a 1:1 user to account ratio, that everyone that created an account actually downloaded the software & logged in and that 2 weeks ago the 30 day figure wasn't substantially different, the most optimistic statement Claire would have been factually able to make would have been "In February, Second Life had 1m users". 1m is very different to 3m. The issue gets even more cloudy when you try and work out active users - i.e. of those 1,052,344 'residents', how many of them will ever come back to the site? - the presumption being is that there are a lot of people, attracted by the hyperbole surrounding it, trying it out once and never coming back. Clay Shirky reasonably estimates the churn rate to be in excess of 85%. As I said in my original post, it's not that Second Life isn't interesting and something that marketers shouldn't be aware of and be experimenting with, but as with everything, they should be properly informed about it. I contend that many of them probably rely on Marketing to do that informing, and in this instance you have let them down.
 
 
by Clay Shirky
March 14, 2007 2:31 PM
 
Craig, I think Robin is closer to having the interests of marketers in mind than you are. The numbers for Second Life are, quite simply, dismal, and the chances that a marketer with a position in Second Life will get their money's worth is quite low. Unlike Robin's analysis, your's begs the question, as you assume that signups indicate positive views of the technology. This isn't true -- signups represent positive views of the advertising, but it is possible to have good advertising for a bad product. For a marketer interested in attracting the attention of real people, Second Life is grim -- 1.4M people tried it in 2006, but the number of them ho returned in 2007 barely broke 100K. Advising marketers to spend money on something that *more than 90% of potential users decide they don't like* should at least appear with more caveats than your publication's advice does here.
 
 
by Lazar Dzamic
March 19, 2007 7:43 PM
 
I'm surprised that no one mentioned any 'hits', as they seem to be back in fashion... So, back to the good old days of confusing the matters, so we can sell it better, eh? I understand the commercial logic, though, but Clay's point is actually a very relevant one: prove that you've got regular visitors Craig (and how many, and over what period of time) and we're game.
 
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