Drawing Up a Virtual Marketing Plan

"Second Life is investing in the future, and new marketing is the safest bet anyone can place," Jaffe remarks. "Nontraditional, bold decisions are transforming everything. You can't be all things to all people. That's abusive frequency and customers get fed up."

Jaffe believes in penetrating Second Life's culture and economy because it is offering an experience no marketer has had before. "Marketers haven't had the chance to engage with consumers. The Internet has become a conversation and customer service tool. It was an inevitability that this needed to be formed."

In addition, Jaffe believes that SL has removed some of the geographic hurdles that companies must grapple with when expanding globally.

"For us, it was a no-brainer to become a company of practitioners to get a remote, global company," he says. "When you play it out that way, you naturally arrive at Second Life rather than think of it as a gimmick."

To Jaffe, entering SL is not just watching a civilization birthed. "You're actually a part of it," he says. "I tell marketers it's not a reach-play. Second Life is about a very special group of people that are opinion leaders, innovators and early adopters. These people are pioneers just by being, as opposed to by doing."

For crayon, the goal and the responsibility is how to shepherd and guide companies, such as current client Coca-Cola, to smartly and strategically invest in SL.

"Companies need to learn to invest in the community and the economy without replicating what they do in the real world," Jaffe says. "We have an obligation as a partner to, in a way, be protective of the client as well as Second Life."

Jaffe's believes companies now have the responsibility to invest in the future. "It's an obligation to their shareholders to invest in the what-next and the what-if. Traditional media continues to decrease in its effectiveness and efficiency."

Crayonville Virtual Headquarters

Along the way, this means companies must be willing to make mistakes, take risks and, most importantly, be willing to experiment. Consumers are fundamentally outgrowing marketers and advertisers, Jaffe says, and they're not waiting up.

"Someone told me that senior marketers have got to the position by managing and mitigating risk," Jaffe continues. "The ability to continue to grow momentum and equity will become less a function [of that] and instead being able to take risks and be risk-inclined."

In other words, the writing is on the wall for Jaffe, and he's chosen to read it.