Second Life a new Marketing Frontier

--Disney paid Fizik Baskerville and his team to create a Second Life prototype avatar of the character "Marvin" from last year's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to walk around and interact with the citizens of the alternative reality game Second Life.

(From W James Au's blog): "During the movie's production, Fizik Baskerville and his team created the Marvin avatar based on the production designer's specs, using that to plan a marketing campaign for their client, Disney. "We did that not only for Hitchhiker's... we did it for Pirates of the Carribean 2/3 and Chronicles of Narnia." Using SL's avatar customization tools, "Within a short period of time we have [characters from these Disney films] walking around those ideas as avatars."

--"PQ Media released research saying advertising on blogs, RSS and podcast will nearly reach $50 million in 2006. User-generated content is expected to account for $750 million in advertising by 2010. (Source)

--In a recent Businessweek article, serial entrepreneur Munjal Shah was determined to spend next to nothing on marketing for his startup company, Riya.

"In late August, 2005, he started keeping a regular blog about launching his startup. "The idea was to have frank conversation with potential users," getting them involved with the process from the beginning, Shah says. "I just started telling the story of the company with me as the protagonist, with regular entries with mock-ups of what I was trying to build, or just posts where I'd say: 'God, this was frustrating today.'"

A few established bloggers, including BusinessWeek's own Rob Hof (see BW Online, 12/19/05, "Riya: Not for Sale (At Least Not Yet)") pointed to his blog, and Shah started generating readership. Blogging is a tack adopted by other startups, including plumpstocking.com, an online stocking stuffer store. Founder Kathleen Vignos regularly weighs in on the challenges and milestones of starting a business.

Does it work? Blogging and other methods helped Riya establish a loyal following before the site went live. In the first 24 hours, nearly 1 million photos were uploaded, he says. "All in all, I think we spent $2,000 on marketing and promotion, including the pizza and T-shirts at the launch party," Shah says. In less than a month, the company is halfway toward its traffic goal for the whole year, giving hope to other new businesses eager to build a Web presence without going broke."

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