Ask Patty and Jody DeVere Interviewed on Diva Marketing blog

Friday Fun: Ask Patty Goes Second Life - Interview With Jody Devere

May 4, 2007

Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.

Did this week seem especially long to you? After a week traveling from Atlanta to Las Vegas to speak at the second Healthcare Blogging Summit .. more on that one next week! .. Friday Fun is much needed. How about you?

Kick off those fab Jimmy Choos pour yourself an Appletini and enjoy a special interview with the Diva of Women and Cars (ta dah!) Jody DeVere, president of Women's Automotive Association International (WAAI) and Ask Patty (The web site created by professional women in the auto industry for women to get advice on car purchases, maintenance and other automotive related topics. Very cool.)

Jody is bringing Ask Patty to Second Life. She gracioulsy agreed to give Diva's readers the back-story about the marketing stratetgy.

Toby/Diva Marketing - Can you give me a bit around what many will call your most innovative strategy and others will say is a short-term flash of cool? Why are you bringing Ask Patty to Second Life?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - To reach out to the Second Life community and get our brand and message out in front of the 5m + registered users that I assume are 50% women! These are serious internet players and many key influencers in the social media world and more and more auto manufactures are participating in SL.

I wanted to go where the internet addicts live and stake out a territory to get noticed! Second Life is an online virtual world populated by hundred's of thousands of users/avatars from all over the world.

Toby/Diva Marketing - Why did Ask Patty choose to invest in an social media strategy that seems to skew towards men?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - I think you would be very surprised at how many women are just as passionate about cars as men. 40% of NASCAR race fans are women and there are a few million of those at least!. The assumption that the automotive world is really just for men is one of the "old ideas' that has fueled AskPatty's success and popularity overall.

Toby/Diva Marketing - How will you promote your Second Life world?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - We created an entry point to our SL venue on our blog, website and are promoting through the bloggosphere, press releases etc. Our best advertisement is our venue in SL, shaped like a car and very unique it attracts much attention and stand out prominently in the SL landscape. Our SL venue builder Osprey Therian is a genius! Most people "fly" around SL and we are very visible from the air land and sea thanks to her creativity !

Toby/Diva Marketing - Did you buy an island?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - We applied and were accepted to do a build on Pontiac's Motorati Island a few months back, they deeded us our parcel to build on. Motorati Island is the island of all things automotive..a great position for AskPatty to be in 'car-land" extreme! Pontiac's Motorati Island includes 96 acres of shops, car dealers, hangouts, restaurants, racetracks, and road-side attractions dedicated to automotive enthusiasts in Second Life.

Toby/Diva Marketing - How will you make the experience different from that of a "first life" experience?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - Direct interaction and conversations with our visitors - It's like chat on steroids. Avatars all have a Real Life too and conversation and friendships are encouraged in SL. I meet new women daily and WOM works here too Big Time! Great immediate feedback on AskPatty.com and what we are all about for women car buyers from our visitors as well!

Toby/Diva Marketing - What is success for Ask Patty in second life?

Jody Devere/ Ask Patty - Increase brand awareness, take it up a notch ... Second Life is getting tons of press and I wanted to catch the wave so to speak - Increase traffic and usage of all of our great services for women!

Did I mention Second Life is FUN with a capital F for FUN? It is a seriously creative place to explore and get creative with your marketing plan. Be careful it is very addicting! Read about Mortorati Life and Ask Patty's creative adventure into the virtual world where you can -

1. Get advice from our panel of auto expert women
2. Read our automotive FAQs
3. Enter our $50,000 Automotive Shopping Spree
4. Get automatic service reminders with MyCarPage
5. Search for your Dream Car!
6. Get a free Ask Patty shirt and pin
7. Learn about child seat safety at our child safety kiosk
8. Let the Second Life kiddies play in our play area!

Jody .. very progressive, innovative and cool. Hmm .. any virtual speeding tickets? Just wondering ..

See interview here