Evian and Second Life

An article on Promomagazine.com caught my eye because it pertains to Second Life - a topic my professor for Audience Research, Kim Gregson, is very interested and blogs about. The article I found is about Evian Natural Spring Water and Second Life. After reading the article I was curious to learn more about Second Life as I am not very familiar with it, so I visited Kim's blog. It is pretty cool and definitely worth taking a look at! Visit Kim's blog at http://profkim.blogspot.com/. Also if like me you are not very familiar with second life visit the Second Life Web site to read what it's all about! Second Life is basically a 3-D virtual world inhabited by residents from around the world.

Now to the article - the article I came across pertaining to Second Life discusses how Evian Natural Spring Water is using Second Life to promote its product. Evian is putting vending machines in high-traffic locations around the 3-D world of Second Life. Evian consumers can now give their "virtual bodies" a chances to drink the water. When someones avatar (graphic character which represents them) approaches an Evian vending machine a message will pop up offering them to "give their skin a 'second life' with a bottle of Evian." If they accept they can then choose from various new natural skins for their avatar. The avatar will then receive a better texture and better lighting. Here is what the vending machines look like:
I think Evian's use of Second Life to promote their product is an excellent idea. More and more people are beginning to visit virtual worlds and if Evian is one of the first companies to advertise on Second Life they will definitely raise a tremendous amount of awareness about their product. In the article, Jeff Caswell, vice president of marketing for Evian North America states his reasoning for placing Evian in Second Life. Caswell says, "With build-it-yourself virtual worlds, fantasy lands and video games increasing in popularity, we felt that Second Life was a fitting platform for Evian to make its virtual debut." Hats off to Caswell and Evian because I think this is a great idea! All you Second Life users keep an eye out for the Evian vending machines!

Here is an introduction to Second Life:


The article discussed can be found at: http://promomagazine.com/news/evian
_tests_waters_second_life_100407/