The show floor is open and the halls are packed to the brim with marketers, vendors and retailers looking for new ways to better their search programs.
The sessions at the show are a little long, at an hour and a half and it makes for a rotating door kind of feel throughout. However, all kinds of topics have been addressed and the attendance has been packed, so it’s not a waste. One interesting thing that was discussed yesterday was Second Life, which I thought was a bit far from search, but apparently not. Especially since one of the buzz words at this show is integration. I guess even the search industry knows the value of mixing the on and the offline world to communicate with consumers.
And that integration includes campaigns in Second Life, like a Starwood Hotels campaign in the virtual world to create a dialog between the announcement of a new line of hotels and the three years it’ll take to create the product.
In the Second Life version of the hotel, visitors can suggest decor ideas, which may be infused into the real design, as the hotel gets built. The search words play a role, as when Second Lifers hear about the trend, they may search it first. These searches lead to landing pages that promote the hotel and the game in Second Life, double engaging the consumer for the real and the virtual brand.
-Dianna Dilworth
