• Ad Age, Monday, October 2, 2006 11:45 AM

Ad shop Leo Burnett is opening up a virtual shop in Second Life, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game played by nearly a million Internet users. The Chicago agency, which has done and recently lost work for clients like Cadillac and the U.S. Army, is now opening an "ideas hub" within the massive online world. What's an "ideas hub?" A virtual time-waster for employees who want to feel like they're working? Maybe, but real-life marketers from ESPN to Adidas to American Apparel have moved into Second Life, where they sell virtual incarnations of their real-world products. Perhaps these manufacturers need virtual ads to drive virtual traffic to their virtual stores? For this and other reasons, Burnett has become the first ad agency to set up shop in Second Life. It's bought 16 virtual acres, which so far holds nothing but an apple tree, the agency's emblem, and a coming-soon sign. One of the main ideas behind moving into Second Life is to connect the agency's network of 2,400 creatives, says Mark Tutssel, the shop's chief creative officer. "I don't want brands shackled by geography," Tutssel said. "It lets all of our creatives live in the same place."

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