Massively^™

We couldn't resist. After reading Tateru's write-up of the Colgate Promotion on-grid in Second Life, we had to jump on and see if it really was half as bad as portrayed. Honestly? She was quite possibly being fairly generous. While we're by no means aficionados on Virtual World events, we do fancy that we can dress ourselves well enough to be able to tell ugly marketing when we see it. Colgate! Now with Powerful Red White and Blue coloring, typos, and promotional machines that do absolutely nothing beyond giving you notecards! We're impressed. But what we're impressed with isn't necessarily what they were expecting; we're impressed that a multi-million (billion?) dollar corporation couldn't spare one flunky at the lowest levels. You know, one that has a basic grasp of grammar and enough tech savvy to figure out how to click on a vending machine and say "hey, this isn't working right."

But this leads us to a bigger question, as is the whole point of our Daily Grind... When you see something like this, that is meant to create product hype but instead falls flat on its face, what does it make you think about the company in general? If it's a virtual world that you deeply care about, and they come slap-dash through and just smack things up in less time than a night-before-due college term paper, does that rankle? How does it make you feel when it seems like they didn't even check their handiwork? And for that matter does the lack of care in the virtual worlds you spend time in make you less inclined to buy their products when you hit the store?

A few hours ago, I got an invite to zip out to see Colgate-Palmolive's Second Life promotion, which opens today. Colgate's Smile Power Team will be handing out free virtual goody bags, we are told. There are also four vending machines at the site that are supposed to give out the same freebies.

So, why aren't I smiling?