Thunderclap

http://promomagazine.com/news/evian_...d_life_100407/

For most of this year, Evian Natural Spring Water has been using the advertising tagline, “The most important body of water is your own,” to stress the product’s wellness benefits.

Now customers can give their virtual bodies a taste of that wellness too, by buying a drink of Evian for their graphic stand-ins in the virtual world of Second Life.

In its first foray into the virtual realm, Evian is placing vending machines in various high-traffic locations around the 3-D world. Residents who pass one of these machines will see a pop-up message offering them the chance to give their skin a “second life” with a bottle of Evian.

Residents who accept the offer will receive a virtual bottle of Evian and will then choose from a variety of new natural skins for their avatar, the graphic character that represents them. Accepting the Evian will transform that virtual character’s appearance, not just switching to the newly chosen skin, but by giving it a better texture and even better lighting.

“With build-it-yourself virtual worlds, fantasylands and video games increasing in popularity, we felt that Second Life was a fitting platform for Evian to make its virtual debut,” said Jeff Caswell, vice president of marketing for Evian North America, in a statement. “Everyone should be able to experience the many benefits that Evian has to offer—whether they’re in the real world or the virtual world.”

Anyone seen one yet?

Liona Clio

Hmmmmmm. Interesting promo. Watch it get ripped to shreds in the SL fashion blogs, because *someone's* gonna hate the skin they give out, regardless of the designer...or, more likely, *because* of the designer.

Anyone hear who's making the Evian skins?

__________________


"Well, my days of not taking you seriously have certainly come to a middle."

“I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face!” - Sue Sylvester, "Glee"

Reality Control

That's a pretty cool promo.

IMVU gives you a nice starter pack from a selection of choices and even send you a message telling you who's goods you chose with links to their store which I thought was a nice idea.

FlipperPA Peregrine

This is the kind of approach by a company I can fully support. Do something SL related instead of just plopping down a replica of your RL store, heh.

__________________
Peregrine Salon: Flip & Jenn's thang.

Khamon

How does Water feel about being tested in Second Life?

__________________
A Journey Through the World of Lever Harping

Mereille

I'm wearing the skin now.

Evian partnered with REALSkin so the skins are top freebie quality. The box gives you a bottled water, and 3 shapes/skins for each gender.

__________________
I don't know why I think I can manage Second Life....just look at my First Life! Gah!

Nessa Yiyuan

Stephen Lightworker (RealSKIN)

Mereille

I just realized that saying 'top freebie quality' could have sounded like a veiled insult. I didn't mean it that way.

I meant that Stephen does top quality work, and the skins are free.

I stumbled across it when skin/shape shopping. If you go to RealSKIN, there is an Evian machine in the clearance section.

Liona Clio

Kulelio! Now I gots to know where to find an Evian water stand in SL so I kin try 'em out...

Reality Control

Do they have bolted on undies?

Nessa Yiyuan

you can get the skins at realskin in the discount room. I have a picture with the skin on but i don't know if i can post i nude SL pic here.

Mereille

I don't think so. (Sorry, I'm almost never nude, so tend to not think about it). But I think they are like Stephen's normal work (which also means shaved).

prinţesă nină

not sure how i feel about this.
part of me doesnt like this skin give-away.

Joshua Nightshade

I don't care about the skin, but I am concerned with that "pop up" thing.

How does that work?

__________________

prinţesă nină

what if you were a skin maker though?
or what if some movie studio set up shop and started giving out top notch mech avs and whatnot? i worry it would be too easy for some corporation to flatten sole traders.

prinţesă nină

"Residents who pass one of these machines will see a pop-up message offering them the chance to give their skin a “second life” with a bottle of Evian."

notecard spam i am guessing.

Joshua Nightshade

Or what if someone who's as capable a builder as me starts giving out robotic avatars for less than me?

Eh, it's all playdough money to me. I can see how someone might feel slighted, and when one of my classified keywords was gamed by a movie studio with an 800.00 USD ad I did feel pissed, but I'm still making avatars and that movie studio's ad isn't around.

Mereille

Yup...it's notecard spam. I'm not sure how close you have to get for the sensor to go off though.

Joshua Nightshade

Goddamn them.

prinţesă nină

next it will be nc givers on 16's all over the grid.
maybe they will form a partnership with umnik and robo.

Mereille

You mean like what they did for the Transformers movie? (http://slnatalia.blogspot.com/2007/0...-sector-7.html)

Why would it hurt skin makers? This is another marketing scheme. Freebies at the door....freebies at newbie areas (with LM), and freebies partnered with RL products (with LM). It can't hurt any more than a single skin maker suddenly giving away all of their skins.

Plus people's tastes vary. Not everybody likes RealSKIN. Or any of the other high quality skin makers.

Joshua Nightshade

prinţesă nină

this isnt a serious effort though.
how different would it be if MAC decided to drop their entire makeup range on the grid via skins? hired themselves a hotshot artist for 'only' $25,000 to create a couple hundred unique skins... it can get bad.

Polymorphous

If the skins are already available cheap/almost free, they are hardly hurting anybody being given away free as part of the Evian marketing. Not a top designers top work given out free, their cheapies given away free. I don't see a problem with that.

Jackal Ennui

They sold (gave away) avatars. They used an appropriate keyword for the product. Their RL corporate backing had 800 USD to pay for a class ad. I don't see the gaming.

What I routinely see are classified ads in the 100k+ L$ dimension - around 400 USD. Not an unrealistic proposition for a successful in-world business - au contraire, I would expect the maximum price to double over the next, uh, half year or so, if the population increase continues. What then - is it still gaming if skinmaker XY pays 800USD from her in-world sales for a classified ad with the keyword "avatar"?

__________________
lassitude & ennui
original mesh - est. 2005
marketplace . in-world . blog