• by Liz Tascio , November 28, 2006

How Starwood is building the hotel of the future in Second Life.

Imagine an active online focus group that operates in 3-D - one in which group members experience a product in real time, talk to each other, and leave and return at will, perhaps coming and going for months, all the while spreading the word about a marketer.

This dream world exists - or rather, it exists virtually, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. has staked out a place inside.

Starwood, creators of the upscale W Hotels brand, is using the virtual community Second Life to introduce its new brand, Aloft. The new hotel brand targets a hip thirtysomething crowd, offering wireless Internet service, chic areas for lounging and socializing, cool terminology (the pool is named "Splash" and the snack bar "Re:Fuel"), and loft-like architecture throughout.

The chain wanted to get feedback and create buzz among its target audience before constructing a brick-and-mortar building. So Starwood began construction this fall on an "island" it purchased in Second Life, foreshadowing what it plans to do in 2008 in five North American locations.

Second Life boasts a growing audience - and one with which Starwood believes it can make a powerful connection. Last winter, Second Life had about 100,000 members. In November, thanks in part to the growing availability of broadband, the count surpassed 1.3 million.

"We firmly believe our target audience is partly made up of early adopters, tech-savvy travelers, and neo-nomads - just the type of individual that is experiencing Second Life," says Brian McGuinness, Starwood's vice president of Aloft hotels.

Virtual Worlds

In Second Life, owned by Linden Lab of San Francisco, subscribers use built-in 3-D modeling tools to create and animate anything they want: a guitar, a dragon, an arsenal, a private home. It's extremely social; avatars chat, argue, hold meetings, teach classes, and buy and sell from each other. They purchase Second Life currency with real dollars. Users can lease mainland property or islands from Linden and each other. A small space, 512 square meters, costs $5 a month; a large island, 64 acres, runs about $5,800.

Some buy islands for privacy, some to control the look of a space. Starwood wants Aloft to become a popular venue for events and socializing in Second Life, a branded presence with value. It plans to host CD launch parties, private movie screenings and shows, and more. Events so far have been invite-only, McGuinness says.

From the start, the virtual incarnation of the hotel served two main purposes: to align the brand with bleeding-edge technology and culture, and to serve as a continuous, buzz-inducing focus group that Starwood will use to refine its plans for the real Aloft.

"The first day, we got feedback like, 'I won't stay at the hotel because there's no doors to the toilets,'" says Marc Schiller, CEO of marketing company ElectricArtists. There are bathroom doors, Schiller says; they were just hard to see. But the team was thrilled users thought of the hotel as a real place. "We did a high-five, because we knew that what we attempted was working," Schiller says. "It took 30 seconds to find out that people got what we wanted them to get."

Aloft's McGuinness says the design for the real hotel will incorporate changes to foot traffic flow and color scheme, thanks to information gleaned from Second Life.

The virtual Aloft officially opened in October, celebrating with an invitation-only, two-hour Ben Folds CD launch party. About 1,000 avatars stopped by throughout the day, a high for the hotel, Schiller says. Some waited outside after the concert was full; technical restrictions kept the party to about 50 to 65 people at a time.

Second Life can track the movements of avatars with Big Brother-like detail, but some analysts say applying that data to the real world can be tricky. "Not only can you measure the time people spend with the medium, you can also track just about every single step, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with," says Ilya Vedrashko, an emerging media strategist and blogger who studies advertising in games and virtual worlds like Second Life. "Now, whether it's translatable [to the real world] is up for debate."

Schiller says metrics aren't the point in this type of experiment. "We're starting to tell a story, and the story is what the brand's DNA is all about," Schiller says. "That can't be quantified by metrics."

The campaign will roll out print, TV, and radio advertising in January from agency RDA. For now, ElectricArtists relies on in-world and real-life buzz and a blog, VirtualAloft.com, to educate people about the hotel, built by design firm Electric Sheep. Wary of annoying users, ElectricArtists has stayed away from in-world advertising.

Faux and Real Worlds Collide

Part of Second Life's appeal is its e-commerce; avatars sometimes spend upwards of half a million U.S. dollars a day, according to a running tally on the Second Life homepage. They buy what other users create, whether it's a bit of cool animation, a gun, a T-shirt, a building, property rights, hair, or a body part.

On fansites and blogs in the real world, users debate whether real-life brands will crush this "in-world" commerce and detract from the community's creativity. Some have staged in-world protests.

Piers Fawkes, curator of the trend-spotting and marketing blog psfk.com, says brands succeed when they bring value to Second Life users. He approves of Aloft's plan to serve as a social venue. "If you look at the homegrown commerce within Second Life, you see people who will help you make an avatar or make a home or set up a nightclub," Fawkes says. "[Some] brands seem to be coming in and just trying to show off their wares."

David Fleck, Second Life's vice president of marketing, says brands that experiment with the space and offer fresh content tend to do well. "What happens if we don't apply real-world-type viewing metrics, and [instead] start measuring what viral effects look like in Second Life - how fast it gets replicated or duplicated?" he says.

Several brands have made good use of the features that only a 3-D world can offer. American Apparel, for example, opened a virtual store that carries avatar clothing and provides incentives to visit brick-and-mortar stores and buy the same clothing in real life. Reuters stationed a reporter inside Second Life in October. Adidas and Toyota have also had success.

"People are spending ridiculous amounts of time, hours on end, hanging out at CNET lounge," says Travis Unwin, vice president and managing director of Blue Ribbon Digital, which specializes in driving online users to physical locations. "It's a great opportunity to stylize what you're going to be offering to people."

Starwood seems to have discovered a benefit of the virtual world that is ideally suited to a hotel developer. Thanks to 3-D modeling tools, it's possible to create gorgeous virtual buildings.

"For them to showcase the building is really the essence of what they [can do in Second Life]," Vedrashko says. "This is the right time in the right environment."

Other architects are looking to Aloft to innovate and raise the bar. Jon Brouchoud, owner of Crescendo Design, says Second Life changed the way he does business, too. Brouchoud invites potential customers to tour model homes in Second Life, where they can customize paint finishes and floor details, or move the kitchen to the back of the house on a whim. He's been impressed with Aloft's construction. "Attention to detail on that project is exquisite," Brouchoud says. "It's just about as close to real life as you can get in Second Life."