Traffic snapshot: Automobiles
Traffic snapshot: Automobiles. Car brands have been very quick to adopt Second Life.
The strategies deployed by these companies range from product launches and NPD, through to community building and events. But who is generating the most traffic? Of course, traffic is just one of the metrics brands should use in metaverses – the others being measurement of dialogue, interaction and engagement. However, looking at the traffic is useful to discover the level of visits from Second Life residents. To define traffic (taking from the LL knowledge base): Traffic is a number for each parcel which is based on the amount of Residents who visited, and the time spent on that parcel out of their total time inworld that day. It’s actually a little more complicated than that, but for comparative purposes, it’s a useful gauge.
Seeing as we’re looking at traffic, it makes sense to start with the automobile sector.
The graph below shows the car brands launched into SL to date (end of June) in chronological order (oldest at the bottom, newest at the top). Traffic figures relate to the last 24 hours, so, just a single day.
Nissan comes out top (on an individual island basis) with over 5,000 unique visitors. So why? Well, firstly it has to be pointed out that the main Nissan island with the car vending machine is approaching iconic status in SL – a clever concept and a venue with interaction. Nissan has good awareness in SL helped by this concept as well as the fact that it was the second brand to enter SL after Toyota’s Scion City. Interestingly, Nissan had double the traffic than Scion City, explained in large by the fact that Nissan is a more engaging venue.
The third entrant into SL, Pontiac fairs reasonably well, however, they have a range of islands in SL and would in fact be top if all the traffic from all these islands was added together. The data shown is just from their best performing venue. Motarati Island works very hard at building communities of interested residents in SL – thus explaining their success.
The difference between BMW and Mercedes Benz is very clear – explained more in this post.
It’s also interesting to see the effect of newer entrants into SL and the level of traffic they create from buzz awareness. The ING Renault F1 island for example, is the second highest performer on an individual island basis.
The Renault Italia island promoting the Twingo was launched at about the same time as the F1 island but offers less interaction, going some way to explain the lower level of traffic.
So, in summary, Second Life venues that just offer a one-way communication yield fewer visitors than those that provide ‘experiences’. Also, the importance of having a virtual world marketing strategy AND creative concept combined is extremely important.
