I wanted to drop a little update to all of this because Coke has listened to what you and others are saying in the Blogosphere and added a L$500,000 prize to this contest and answered some other questions raised as well.

Video posted at http://youtube.com/watch?v=0JhJPgHDSeQ with their thoughts and comments.

And yes, I’m on a macbook too, and I sometimes feel like I have a 28.8k modem when I’m in SL.

Coke remixing the client software? Wow, there’s a wild idea - sounds expensive, isn’t that what Electric Sheep just got $7m to explore? But just to spur some thought, I guess there’s no reason that a Virtual Thirst machine couldn’t be a HUD….

Here’s another wild idea - Linden Labs is open sourcing both the server and client. What if Coke remixed the client software itself?

I will answer on behalf of CC who’s attending to some family things this week. I’m the chief creative officer at crayon, and I can talk to some of the points you all raise.

Chris - in terms of entry methods, we tried to make it as open as possible. Earlier iterations of our plans included “link to your flickr site” and “here’s our skype VM box”, as well as the blog route.

I will step forward and say that I was the one who advised Coca-Cola not to accept entries via blog posting. While it sounds like a great idea, the problem, as Jutin identified is, what if someone else reads your idea, modifies it slightly, and that is the one that wins? Suddenly we get into a conflict about who really deserves to win, who posted first, how much of a modification constitutes a different idea, and so on.

The Flickr idea was nixed for the same reason. We decided against VM skype simply because it would prove difficult for all the judges (many of whom are US-based SL residents) to deal with the language barrier.

I’m not sure we came up with the perfect “ways to enter” scenario, but I wanted you to know that they were all discussed.

You make a very good point in that we are moving from a marketing world where a company defines it’s brand, to one where the consumer remixes, mashups (is that a verb?), redfines, etc, and having a competition where the brief is “go wild” attempted to show that. You are right that we gave a suggestion - a brief if you will - on some of Coke’s brand values, but again, it’ll be interesting to see how entrants redefine that on their own terms.

Mr. Brogan You ask “how do we take advantage of Second Life in a way that further develops our brand?” - it’s great question, and actually one that we put to our advisory panel of Second Life residents back in February, including Eric Rice, Scott Sigler & Lynette Young. Their early input really helped shape the competition, which, in itself, is an experiment in interacting with virtual communities, from which we want to listen, learn and improve.

To Ed’s point, this whole competition is about experience. Designing a machine that vends a Coke can that an avatar drinks seemed a little pointless (as well as encroaching on fan-created machines already in existence). crayon’s pitch to Coca-Cola was “even avatars get thirsty”, but what they thirst for is experience, entertainment, knowledge, community… and it would be cool to ask the community to help create a virtual machines that tried to satiate THOSE types of thirsts.

On the prize money front, it was debated a LOT. I think a big organization like Coca-cola treads a fine line between being seen as not offering enough and of just opening up a checkbook. We tried to offer something that would be seen as valuable to people interested in designing something for SL, and a trip to Millions of Us to meet them and see how they worked seemed like a good solution. FYI - one of the prototype builders we worked with on this program has since joined MoU as they were so impressed with the work carried out for this project.

Bryan - all I can say to your last point is, send us your idea, and I guess we’ll see

Thanks for all your comments. One of our goals was to stimulate conversation, and learn from what people had to say, so I wanted to let you know that the whole team is listening. I’m happy to chat to anyone more about both the good and bad decisions we made - look for me inworld as Gideon Television.

Cheers

By Coke telling us that its *essence* is — “refreshment, joy, unity, experience” — it is defining its brand for us, or trying to. If I have a really cool idea for a vending machine but what comes out is a completely different concept of what the brand is — namely, a soft drink that I rarely consume because I rarely consume soft drinks of any kind — what do you think my chances are in the contest?

XOXO Diva

i agree about the million lindens idea… might be too expensive. but you know what? at least Coke gets the idea that Second Life can’t distribute real products, and that “feeling” or “essence” is what Second Life can really help distribute for them. i think there’s some good, and some bad, about this campaign. we’ll see what they are as they pan out.

Coke might have asked the wrong question. Maybe they could have skipped the Cumbaya and flat out asked what they REALLY needed to know: how do we take advantage of Second Life in a way that further develops our brand?

By the way, Coke doesn’t just say refreshment to me, but it sure doesn’t say joy, unity and whatever the last one is.

It says, “We go where the cool stuff is.” Coke shows up at lots of events, especially through their new and upcoming brands. They show up to sponsor lots of beverages and some loot at some really great long-tail community experiences. To me, Coke is a brand that wants to be at all the good parties. Pepsi is still trying to make their own party.

At the end of the day, my personal relationship with Coke is mostly based on the taste of their products. But I do think that Coke is making the effort.

And go CC.

In the same respect, what is more “experience” than Second Life?

It won’t be me, though. I don’t use Second Life. I’m busy enough in this one.