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Police Invade Second Life

Another interesting Second Life update.

Vancouver Police are using SL to engage tech-saavy potential recruits.

Brands in SL should do the same and reach out to their ingame brand evangelists by involving them in the development of the brand’s ingame entity as well as through real world interaction. Align your interests with those of your consumers and give them a stake in the future of the brand.

The brand is as much theirs as it is yours.

Once given a voice and empowered they will become even more powerful evangelists.

Many times brands try to leap over the chasm too fast and fail to foster and maintain the relationship with the people that gave them their start. Without a core group of hardcore loyalists a brand is worthless; however, one barrier to strengthening the relationship is finding the right people. Thus, similar to how the police are using platforms like SL to find a certain kind of recruit, brands can use the same platforms to find/recruit their most valuable assets: People that already love their brands.

Seni Thomas seni

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Conversation, Second Life
  • I have zero data, but I *do* recall an article... Can't find it at the moment, where the Army was crowing about what a success the game has been - both as a recruiting mechanism and as a morale booster for already active army personnel who mentor people through the game's multiplayer mode.

    I realize this is the reason that I'm not a parent (and may never be :) but I would find it totally creepy to learn that my teen ager was being tutored in the fine art of warfare by a grizzled combat veteran.

    What's interesting about that is that in general I have no problem with violence in video games as long as parents are there to ensure that their kid can handle it and that it's put into the proper context.
  • Interesting thoughts. Further food for thought is prevalence of 'Armies' or Combat related groups that have propagated on the Teen SL grid. Complete with uniforms and ranks. I think it would take very little for a more organized real world military organization to capitalize on this trend. Do you have any data on the success of Army ventures like the America's Army Game?
  • An interesting question raised by this post: Do institutions really count as 'brands'?

    Are the police force actually selling something? I can see the answer going both ways. On the one hand, they're the embodiment of society's desire for law and order, and hence can't be seen as selling anything because they're something akin to a force of nature. On the other, they could be seen as 'selling' the advantages of leading a crime free life and generally being a law abiding citizen.

    I'll be curious to see if any of the armed forces start using SL as a recruitment tool as well - I find the implications of being recruited in VR to (potentially) go fight and die in the very real world somewhat disturbing, so I hope it doesn't happen any time soon.
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