Marketing Methods: Nicola Escher's Mannequins

If you run--or are thinking of running--a Second Life fashion business, one of the constant challenges is how best to display your wares.

Well, Nicola Escher has a nice tutorial up on her site about how to create a mannequin on which to showcase your creations. It's not new, but if your business is young and you're looking for something you've not tried before, perhaps this is it.

It's not the easiest of methods, and requires multiple steps both in SL and in PhotoShop, but the end result is clever and interesting.

Essentially, you need to take a screenshot in SL of an avatar wearing the item you want to put on display, then take that image into PhotoShop in order to actually make the mannequin. Rather than try to explain the process, I'll send you over to the tutorial, but suffice it to say that the end result, which involves cutting out the background in the original screenshot, can, if done well, look great: A static figure wearing your fashion with a clear background so that whatever is behind it in the store actually looks like it's behind it.

And since one of the keys to attracting customers is giving them a good shopping experience, and keeping that experience fresh, this can be yet another arrow in your quiver.

Follow-up on Armani store coming to SL

Yesterday I blogged that Armani had opened a store in Second Life, but that existing and newer fashion businesses shouldn't worry.

Well, here's further evidence of why that was true, and why famous real-world brands don't pose an automatic threat to purely in-world businesses.

During the day, a lot of Second Lifers tried to visit the Armani store to check it out--the one advantage a brand like that has purely because of its name.

This was a typical result, courtesy of the blog, Shopping Cart Disco:

"I’d like to tell you how spectacular the build is. To tell you about ALL THE AMAZING ITEMS you can purchase at their wonderful, well planned out SL location - because, well, they’ve had more than a year of research in SL to plan it out.

"But no, I’m here to tell you about another craptactular build by another (corporate) entity that didn’t bother whatsoever to think about how things really work in Second Life. To embrace the community. Without the community, SL builds are sure to fail, which results in the company dismissing Second Life as just another failed and crummy venture, when really - it was the corporation’s fault in the first place."

I couldn't have summed up the problem better myself. It's just that: A lot of companies are trying to ride the wave of interest in SL and jump right in, but they simply don't do the research on what it takes to succeed, or they hire the wrong development company to do the work for them.

In the case of Armani, we can now report, they simply blew it by populating their store with a paltry roster of products, and the products they did have are nowhere near as good as those available from dozens of existing SL fashion boutiques.

And, just like that, in one day, they've blown it. Their reputation is shot, and they've lost any advantage they had because of their name. Perhaps it was just a soft launch, but it is probably too late for them to recover their reputation in SL.

And, ultimately, that's the point: Whether you're a big real-life brand or a total unknown getting started in SL, you have really just one chance to, you know, "make a good impression."

If you do, word of mouth will be your best friend. If you don't, as in the case of Armani, it's your worst enemy.

And you'll have no one to blame but yourself if that happens.

I love this photo

This book is full of all kinds of information. And photos! And interviews. And, well...I'll be giving a much better view into the book in the coming days. But take a look at this great photo of a gorgeous ball gown by Paper Couture. This, by the way, is a photo that is on the back cover of the book.