Real places recreated part three: Office buildings. This is the third in a series about Second Life being used to recreate real places.
As highlighted in part two, recreating modern-day cities attracts a lot of visitors with high dwell times – residents like to be in places they are already familiar with as it brings a strong sense of context to their virtual activities.
We hope you enjoyed this article. Using the coupon code ‘TOURDEC’ you are entitled to a 25% discount off the Travel and Tourism case study.
This post discusses the reasons why in some instances building virtual versions of real life office buildings can be a good idea.
Firstly, let’s remember that for the majority of companies in Second Life it is a marketing exercise – at the very least, it comes out of a marketing budget. Marketing budgets are generally geared towards attracting new customers. Recreating office buildings therefore provide a point of reference for potential new customers – a link between the real and virtual worlds. It’s possible (and this is an upward trend) that some potential new customers will see the virtual version before seeing the real one – so in a way this is building brand recognition.
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Demonstrating this idea of providing a context for potential customers further, the Mercedes Benz Second Life project has a virtual dealership (modelled on a real-world one) used as the focal point of their island. People have an understanding of the different areas in a dealership so it makes a lot of sense to carry this into a virtual platform.
Secondly and even more of a marketing angle is buildings either currently being built or about to be built in the real world. Recreating them in Second Life acts as a promotional tool to advertise the fact that a new building is on the way – a visual presss release if you will. Elements of this strategy were used by Aloft as well as Saxo Bank.
Thirdly, some companies are simply proud of their buildings, as they demonstrate their size in the real world. A good example of this is Unitrin, with their version of the Unitrin Tower in Chicago.
Point four. Remember in many cases, visitors to Second Life venues are there for reasons other than to admire a building. In this instance, don’t recreate the wheel – if you have a building that has obvious usage areas then use these as a way to get people as quickly as possible to the information or experience you are communicating. This is demonstrated by the recent Crown Plaza entrance into Second Life – in most cases, you want to expeditie visitors to interact with a venue as opposed to get to figuring out where everything is – just like with website, navigation is extremely important.
The last point – internal. The use of virtual worlds for employee use is growing [read more in the K Zero technology sector case study] so providing virtual spaces that people are familiar with is important as it overcomes any potential issues with using a new communications channel – put them in an environment they are familiar with so they can focus on the reason they are there.
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Here’s the Unitrin project, modelled on the Unitrin Tower in Chicago (SLurl).
Sunbelt Software (story and SLurl).
Saxo Bank with story and SLurl.
The Second House of Sweden. SLurl.
Aloft – story here.
Mercedes Benz. The SLurl, a comparitive story vs BMW and an explanatory story.
