Wednesday, October 31, 2007

de-activ8 Nestlé

One of the new entries in Second Life earlier this month is Swiss dairy mogul Nestlé.

"Nestlé is a multinational packaged food company
founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It results from a merger in 1905 between the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company for milk products established by the Page Brothers in Cham, Switzerland, in 1866 and the Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé Company set up in 1867 by Henri Nestlé to provide an infant food product.
Several of Nestlé's brands are globally renowned, which made the company a global market leader in many product lines, including milk, chocolate, confectionery, bottled water, coffee, creamer, food seasoning and pet foods...
...Some of Nestlé's business practices have been considered unethical, especially the manner in which infant formula has been marketed in developing countries, which led to the Nestlé boycott from 1977."

[Wikipedia]

It's been a while since I've seen a good build, and beforehand I had expected a good professional build, but it was a disappointment. The first signs were good... when looking for the island I saw it was a double-sim build and there were about 25 people present. So it's generating traffic...









It's prime focus is the Nesquick Quicksk8 Park, a more or less urban style skate / ball park with a chocolatemilky river. This is what generates traffic today: The skatepark has been transformed into a cemetary with a Halloween party. Along the river you'll find the Nesquik Graffiti Wall. There's a shack where you can get skateboards and some info on milk. And that's about as Nesquick as it gets.






The build looks quite nesQuick 'n Dirty... it's a bit chaotic and disjoint. The landscaping looks a bit erratic and cheap. The rest of the double-sim venue is split up in various resorts, rentals, clubs and whatever; these are the areas I flew past:


  • Activ8 Beach Resort
  • Activ8 Nightlife Complex
  • Activ8 Martini Lounge

It's a double sim and it's just too much. It's chaotic. I'd not yet read KZero's remarks (spot on!) and expected something like Charlie's-chocolate-factory-ish or Ben & Jerry style.

Here's what Nic from KZero has to say:

But, there’s a serious problem here.

Who is the target market for Nesquik? Is it late 20’s to early 30’s (as the main age group represented in SL) tech and media savvy early adopters? Or is it young kids? Or
maybe it’s the mothers and fathers that actually purchase the product in supermarkets?

If the target is kids, then from a media planning perspective, quite simply it’s the right time but wrong place for them. There’s no kids in Second Life - try There or Kaneva, in fact, go even younger, into Whyville, Club
Penguin
or Habbo.

If the target is mothers and fathers, then the treatment and execution of this project again is out of focus - ever skateboarded in Second Life? Or even wanted to?

Somebody please tell me if I’ve missed the point here!?



As the venue is called activ8, my conclusion would be to de-activ8. Sorry folks.


Anyway, if you'd like to waste your time, here's the SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ACTIV8/128/128/0

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