What can you or can't advertise or promote on your land

[cibernut]

As the title suggests, what are the rules concerning what you can or can't advertise or promote on your land in SL.  

I ask, because after having visited a fair number of places since signing-up not long ago, most land and property mainly advertise and promote services/products that are specific to SL, but on some land areas all manner of things are promoted that have nothing to do with SL in itself; other than the fact that they're in SL.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Advertising maybe for SL or RL products.  However historically advertising for RL products is not effective Residents simply ignore it because they don't want RL mixed with their SL.  Sometimes it may actually boomerang on the advertiser because residents will view the RL product or service negatively.

If your land is on a private estate and is commercial then read the covenant and follow any rules about it there, including restrictions on signage and content, including a prohibition on advertising RL things. You are not allowed to advertise on sims that are residential or sometimes those zoned for mixed use.  For mixed use be sure to read the covenant.

If your land is on mainland, you can usually put up an advertisement, other than in the few mainland regions with a covenant, then you must follow the covenant.  If allowed by the covenant or if there is no covenanent, your land must be at least 128 sqm to be able to show it in search. 

You are not allowed to run an Ad Farm on mainland, which means no more than one advertisement is permitted by any single individual or organization (whether through a personal account or a group account) in any single region.  Advertising cannot be intended solely to drive an unreasonable price for the land parcel it is on, usually by spoiling the nearby visual environment for others. and all advertisements must comply with these requirements:

 

• They must be grounded to the terrain, not floating.
• They must extend no higher than 8 m from the ground.
• They must contain no rotating or flashing content and no particles.
• They must not dispense unsolicited IMs, note cards, landmarks or content.
• They must emit no light sources or glow (full bright is acceptable).
• Advertising boardings must be Phantom.
• Ad content must be clearly General in nature.
• Ads must not contain sound or temp-on-rez content.
• Ban lines should be switched off.

All advertisers must make a reasonable attempt to fit in with the local area and to respect the wishes of Residents living nearby wherever possible. Linden Lab can and will, at its sole discretion, ask you to remove or modify unacceptable advertising-related content.

Link to source: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Policy_on_ad_farms_and_network_advertisers

 

[cibernut]

So quite a few do's and dont's...  You say no more than one ad per region per individual or group, yet there are many destinations/LA's that have multiple ad-boards, also in many instances LA's seem to be advertising multiple RL as well as SL services & products.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

 

That applies to Mainland not private estates.  Private estates can have whatever the covenant allows.  Most venues that you see like that are in private estates on commercial land where that is allowed.  Since they are putting up the ad boards and renting the space out for income to use toward their tiers, they don't care if it's RL products or if it is effective as long as they get their rent.

On mainland, if you erect bill boards the one per region applies.  However a venues may rent ad boards out to help support their business.  The FAQ in the link I gave says:

 

I run a business that places ads inside clubs and malls; am I violating this policy?

We call this "affiliate advertising", and it's unlikely to be affected, especially when it's inside venues and therefore not adversely affecting the local area.

 

Note it says unlikely when they are inside venues.  If you put a bunch of them outside and a neighbor complains, LL will tell you to remove them. 

They whole point of the mainland policy is to prevent eyesores due to ads all over the place where other property owners can see them.

As far as RL ads, there is nothing stopping you from putting them up, it's legal, just not very effective due to the reasons stated in my earlier post.  If it was, you'd see ads for RL products all over SL and you don't.  It was tried by many RL companies years ago, but they all pulled out because they weren't getting any bang for their buck.  People just don't want to see SL commercialized by RL. 

[cibernut]

Ok, well thanks once again for a very thorough run-down of advertising in SL, this has answered a lot of questions.  Incidentally, I last went to a rendering of Munich and other places and here are a few pics that shows RL concerns being advertised as such.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Organizations such as charities or things like protecting whales are supported by a lot of SL residents.  There are also some RL educational institutions like your second example in SL that give classes.  The third one on the concert is probably not really Iron Maiden.  People do 'tribute' concerts in SL where people just have avatars that look like the band members and they mime to recorded music.  If the RL Iron Maiden were really coming to SL that would be HUGE news although some RL bands have performed in SL.

The RL advertising I was talking about was just plain commercial advertising such as Coke or McDonalds advertising in SL.

[jwenting]

third one may also be just a fan putting up a souvenir of a concert he went to. Not much different from people collecting old movie posters

First one, well I'd consider that promoting terrorism (as that organisation is a group of murderous pirates acting under the guise of being an environmental group, they sink fishing vessels after killing the crew and looting any valuables) and might well be actionable as such.