Crayon has been working closely with Coca-Cola to expand its brand awareness within the virtual world of Second Life. Coke is now taking its online campaign to the next level with the “Virtual Thirst” contest, which is being promoted across multiple social avenues, including Second Life, MySpace and YouTube.

The contest is simple: design a new Coke machine for Second Life. The execution of the challenge, however, is the unique factor that bears mentioning.

Submissions will require entrants to visit the MySpace and YouTube pages that Coke has set up for the contest, which in essence, implements a socially integrated marketing strategy that many have predicted would be the next big promotional movement by the major brands.

As for the details of the contest itself, here’s what Coke has to say:

[T]hrow away the box, your expectations and interpretations of what a Coke machine is. Think expansively about the possibilities for having fun and being part of a great experience.

Show us your best ideas - what do you wish you could do or see in Second Life? Do not limit yourself to your own abilities to create objects inside of Second Life - find any way to express your idea and get it to us. Let us and the developers of Millions of US help you make them real in Second Life.

It’s a brilliant move for Coke, actually. Not only is the company getting the benefit of such broad social advertising, but they are also contracting out future marketing efforts to the very people they are trying to reach. What better way to give people what they want than to let them actually design the product.

Now if Coke would only bring back Max Headroom as a Second Life avatar. That would be the pièce de résistance of their venture into virtual worlds and social marketing. 

Tags: Coke, Virtual Thirst, Second Life, MySpace, YouTube