I suppose the theatrics of introducing Jim Stengel as a Second Life avatar, and then teleporting him back to his first life appointment at the AAAA conference last week, was a good way to get the attention of the ad industry --especially the ones who are still holding on to traditional media. Unfortunately, this trick (jumping back to earth from a virtual place) has been done before, and apart from the bragging rights of saying P&G gets Second Life, I am not sure this was the best way to lay the groundwork for the 'relationship' theme that he introduced. Or, rather, he use it to underscore his point.
His bigger themes were not about SL, however, but about 'constant connectivity,' relationships and co-creation --borrowing from the wikinomics concept.
"We're getting much more comfortable with the idea that consumers truly own our brands, and our brand messages. It may be a little scary for us to "let go," but in the end we must realize that what people say about our brands is valued far more than what we say.
Just for the record, the focus on building relationships is a recycled one --'touching lives and improving life' was a big theme two years ago.
Having said that, I have to say I am a huge fan of Jim Stengel, and have been following his mission to clean up the stables of old-style advertising by challenging agencies with new marketing. In 2004, he announced to a horrified audience that the 30-second spot was dead, and there was no 'mass' in mass media. I don't think he said anything as mind blowing this time, though, except urge agency people to keep stepping out of their comfort zone.
If I was him, I would have delivered my entire speech from Second Life, just to make the point that it was one of the discomfort zones we had better get used to. To get the Leo Burnet Avatar to lecture to him about what Second Life was all about ("Second Life is a virtual world which acts as a really big online brainstorm, yada yada...") was a bit lame, I think. Or maybe he was trying to tone down his antagonistic approach from previous years. Without the marketer hectoring the agencies about what they ought to be thinking about, he gave the agency a chance this time to make him look like newbie.
If this was the idea kudos to you Jim.
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