It's not just brands making a push into the metaverse by buying plots of land, creating spaces of their own, and setting up trademarks—agencies have been experimenting and opening in various metaverse lands.
Some have gone further, creating their own metaverse practices, such as Accenture and WPP’s Metaverse Foundry. To understand the process and motivation behind having a virtual presence, Ad Age took a look at 11 agencies that have made investments in creating virtual office-like spaces.
The consulting company and parent of Accenture Interactive started experimenting in the virtual world pre-pandemic. In November 2020 the company launched its Nth Floor metaverse space as a virtual campus and continued to build its capabilities within Microsoft's AltspaceVR.
The purpose of the space is for employees to meet and collaborate—no small feat given that the $50 billion company has nearly 700,000 employees worldwide.
Read more: Metaverse glossary for brands
The company also created "digital twins" of many of its physical offices, such as Bangalore, India; Madrid, Spain; and San Francisco, California to provide familiar environments for its people to meet, collaborate, and network, the company said in a statement.
The space has been used to onboard new employees to experience orientation in a more “personal way,” according to a statement by Accenture. This year, 150,000 new hires are working from the metaverse on their first day. The space is also being used to help employees learn new skills or brush up on existing ones. A September report by Accenture found that employees forget 70% of training content within 24 hours of being taught and nearly 90% in a month.
“Our new ‘VR Cybersecurity Adventure’ course provides a gamified experience that takes users through an immersive journey set in both real and fantasy environments,” according to a statement by the company. “The training asks users to defend themselves against hackers, scammers, fraudsters, and cyber bullies as the user’s knowledge of safe cybersecurity practices is put to the test using select VR headsets.”
The metaverse has also been used to hold virtual events, such as a strategy meeting that saw 150 managing directors from 25 different countries attend.
In February, Havas Group announced plans to launch a new office in The Sandbox. While the agency hasn’t finalized the space yet, it has bought the plot of land in the virtual platform, which has been attracting brands like Adidas, Atari, and Gucci and high-profile celebrities like Snoop Dogg. This was a big reason the agency chose to invest in The Sandbox over a competitor.
The Sandbox "is still in the alpha version, but it has already managed to attract the interest of brands,” said Stéphane Guerry, president of Havas Sports & Entertainment and founder of Metaverse by Havas, a consulting, creative, and media offering launched last year. “We think it's unleashing economic opportunities as well, because it allows people to build and monetize all their creations, whether it's an avatar, building, or an NFT collectible. We think it allows almost limitless creative freedom for both users and brands.”
The space will be used to launch exclusive content, connected animation, and gamification, as well as organize conferences, events, concerts, product launches, and more, according to a statement by the network. The space itself cost around $130,000, Guerry confirmed.
This isn’t Havas’ first foray into the metaverse. Last year Havas created an undercover Fortnite avatar to detect and help children that were experiencing abuse in their homes. In February, Socialyse Paris, which is part of the network, hosted the first Narcotics Anonymous support group meeting in the metaverse.
The new Havas office, or in its parlance, "village" is scheduled to open at the end of April.
In January, multicultural agency IW Group opened an office on the metaverse platform Spatial. The space has a lobby area and a gallery area for the agency to feature campaigns that attendees can learn more about by clicking on them. The idea is to use the space as a learning tool for clients and as a venue for internal and external events. To optimize the effect of the metaverse, Telly Wong, senior VP and chief content officer at IW Group, says it’s important to have VR sets.
“We've been looking at VR before the term metaverse took off at the end of last year when it was just virtual reality,” Wong said. "The technology is so much more accessible now. Once anyone sees it or actually experiences it, they realize this is the future. This is how you're going to reach your consumers in the future.”
According to Wong, most of the agency’s employees have VR sets and the shop has gifted headsets to some clients so they can use them for presentations and one-on-one meetings. Wong says meetings are more efficient with headsets because the immersive experience makes it more likely that people are engaged.
“It's like the difference between watching a movie at home and watching a movie in a theater,” Wong said. “You're watching what's being shared. You're not checking your phone or on another browser shopping.”
Meetings can be had in public or private spaces and Spatial allows users to pull up 3D images so people can review a product together, for example.
Clients “are already starting to see that there are so many ways to use this, not just for the consumer, but also internally, for meetings and things like that,” Wong said. “It could be very beneficial because once you have the headset on, I feel like you’re right in front of me.”
Since building its expertise the agency has launched two projects for McDonald’s in the metaverse. Last year the brand launched a virtual pop-up scavenger hunt and this year the agency helped the world's largest restaurant chain create a Lunar New Year-themed gallery, both on Spatial.
The agency is paying for Spatial’s “Pro” membership, which comes to $25 a month or as low as $20 per month when billed annually.
In December, Mediahub launched its own office in Decentraland, which is one of the more popular metaverse spaces. The project was created by the agency’s creative media group, Radical + Disruptive Lab, as a testing ground for the agency to learn about the space and show its clients what is possible.
“We’ve seen a huge uptick in requests from clients asking for everything from tactical guidance to high-level strategic direction on how their brand can make smart moves in the space,” said Simeon Edmunds, senior VP and creative director at R+D Lab. “The biggest benefit of having the office to date has been a shift in what our clients expect from us. It’s such a thrill to have clients researching the metaverse on their own and hitting us up with questions about specific platforms and activation possibilities. Our office is a simple example of a Web3 metaverse execution that doesn’t involve Facebook or Travis Scott or NFT drops, and that’s really helped reduce confusion about what 'next' can mean for a client in their digital media evolution.”
The agency chose Decentraland instead of The Sandbox because it “showed stronger numbers in both users and general awareness," Edmunds said. “From a design perspective, it also has a bit more of a grown-up look while Sandbox draws a lot more from Roblox and Minecraft visual styles,” he added.
The office was launched alongside a Discord channel meant for recruiting talent. Through the Discord channel, people are able to engage with the agency through pop-up recruitment sessions and informational presentations and can get feedback on resumes from senior staff. The channel also includes designated text channels for various agency departments.
Edmunds says he has seen new hires and current employees show eagerness to expand their Web3 knowledge due to the experiment. While he hasn’t seen any big new hiring changes as a result so far, one-third of those connected with Mediahub on Discord are from outside the agency. Edmunds predicts engagement to increase as the agency rolls out new channels and allows comments more broadly.
One lesson learned for the agency involved its NFT gallery featured on the third floor of its office which showcases activations from various underrepresented artists that don’t have a history in the metaverse.
“One of the things we’ve learned through this process is that it takes quite a bit longer to bring artists into the metaverse for the first time than those who are already native to the space,” Edmunds said. “That’s a direct result of the technical learning curve associated with anything metaverse related, not something caused by the artists themselves. A change we’re making in response to that lesson is instead of bringing art into our office, we’ll swap out the build entirely and have Mediahub function as the sponsor of a new experience that’s customized to the artist. Changing a build within Decentraland is as simple as updating the file published to the space you own or rent. It's so much easier than making changes to physical offices.”
During the early part of the pandemic Lewis Smithingham, Media.Monks’ director of creative solutions, was taking meetings in video games like Grand Theft Auto and Animal Crossing. In March 2020, Media.Monks Executive Producer Brook Downton built a replica of the agency’s New York office in Minecraft.
“We are building in multiple spaces already, and as platform-agnostic partners we will continue to show up in any and every space where audiences are engaging,” said Tim Dillon, Media.Monks senior VP of real-time & virtual worlds. “It’s less about picking which space, and more about doing the research to find out where your audience is naturally engaging and why. Part of that research is active participation in these worlds, and we build in these spaces because our people inherently spend time in these worlds. It’s not enough to just speak about it, you have to be willing to spend time in these spaces, experience it firsthand and learn what is working.”
For Smithingham, operating in virtual spaces is about finding ways to add value.
“It’s easy for companies to rush in on the literal land grab right now and try to replicate 1:1 their relationship structures and spaces in the real world,” Smithingham said. “Any company contemplating a move into the metaverse should first ask themselves if they can add value and meaning in a way that’s authentic to their brand, and more importantly, their audience. For agencies, the same rules apply.”
The agency has helped create some notable digital activations recently such as a virtual Post Malone concert with a Pokemon collaboration component, and a virtual halftime interview during an NBA game with two-time WNBA champion and co-owner of Atlanta Dream Renee Montgomery within Horizon Venues. The agency has employees that match many skills needed to work in the virtual world, such as 100 employees that focus on the creation of NFTs, a group of Web3 solutions engineers, and 300 social media experts working on the metaverse. However, a key to its flexibility has been opening metaverse projects to anyone who has an interest in learning about it.
“We don't have one team that focuses on the metaverse,” Media Ridha, executive producer at Media.Monks said. “We believe that virtualization represents a foundational change in the fabric of our industry. As such, our entire 8,500 person company is a metaverse team. We didn’t announce we have a metaverse team, because that would be like announcing you have internet teams.”
Movement Strategy was founded in 2009 as a social media agency. Thirteen years later, the agency is making investments in the Web3 space. Jason Mitchell, CEO of Movement Strategy, said he sees parallels between the early days of social media marketing and now.
“One of the reasons that we're really focused on Web3 is so much of the driving force of Web3 is about these communities that are forming,” Mitchell said. “In the same way that 12 years ago we wanted to be innovative and on the front lines of helping brands make the transition to social, I was having conversations then with CMOs saying ‘Hey, you should be on Facebook.' Now fast forward 13 years, and it's the same thing. I'm like, ‘Hey, you should be thinking about NFTs, the metaverse, DAOs and all of that kind of stuff, in service of creating communities online.”
Before being able to give brands advice on the space, Mitchell said it was necessary to become a consumer. Last year the agency created an office space in Decentraland which originally cost $6,947, and has since gone up more than five times in value. The agency chose Decentraland for its office because it’s easy to access without a crypto wallet and easy to navigate, but Mitchell says the agency is also looking to create something in The Sandbox and possibly through Meta as well.
The agency threw an office party, inviting employees and outside guests, and even created a POAP (Proof of attendance protocol) which was a customizable and collectible NFT each person could receive, similar to a party favor. The party, which had nearly 100 attendees, included four speakers and a treasure hunt.
While one goal is to help clients understand the space, Mitchell is also looking to make the agency’s employees interested in learning about the metaverse and becoming experts. He compared Web3 to the early days of social when it was largely ignored by some agencies. "Probably a lot [of them] are regretting that now. I see the same thing happening with Web3. If you don't start to embrace this technology and educate yourself about it, that's going to be pretty detrimental to your career over the coming 10 years. I want people at the company to be educated, but I'm also trying to get people to understand, this is an investment in your career as well. It's not just an investment in this agency.”
R/GA’s office in Decentraland is still a work in progress, but the agency is already familiar with the virtual world. Last year R/GA created a Verizon-sponsored football stadium within Fortnite during Super Bowl week, making it the largest activation in Big Game history. The agency also recently launched its direct-to-avatar capability which will help create virtual stores for brands. Through this capability, in November R/GA worked with tech clothing brand Vollebak to launch a store within Decentraland where users could buy an NFT of the brand’s Mars jacket that their avatars could wear anywhere in the virtual space. Owners of the NFT also were given the opportunity to buy a physical jacket for an additional cost.
R/GA also built an office within Roblox in 2020 and views these internal projects as a way to help clients understand the Web3 space, and also to get people excited about it.
“It's sort of the wild west and we can actually create things that have never been made before,” said Victoria Wells, Web3 and metaverse strategy director at R/GA. “Our clients are asking us things like, 'Where should we buy land?' 'How should we use these platforms?' And so obviously to advise them we want to be able to play in all of those platforms. But from an internal perspective, we see Decentraland as a nice place to build community internally. We want to make sure that we're doing things like test-and-learn and helping develop specializations for internal people who are interested outside of just our metaverse production teams.”
To educate employees internally the agency hosts hackathons and workshops within Roblox and Decentraland.
“For Roblox, it's very much play-related and also world building because that technology is accessible to people who aren't 3D developers as well, but then we're also looking at things like how to set up a crypto wallet, what the NFT process is. Decentraland is a great space to start looking at tokens, NFTs, and crypto and start to understand interoperability, for example," she said.
Interoperability is the ability of computerized products or software to connect and exchange information with one another. Wells said that will be one of the exciting things to look forward to when it comes to the metaverse. "That delivers on the autonomy benefit and the creator-first benefit and is really where this is all going to take off. It’s going to make the metaverse more fun. Being able to portal into different worlds—some owned by companies, some made by users—is really fun. It's like the first internet.”
SCS has experience creating virtual spaces. In July the agency created a farming world experience within Minecraft for its client John Deere.
In April the Costa Mesa, California-based agency will be launching its metaverse space, SCS Beach, along with a metaverse trends report. The goal for the agency is to experiment and understand how to create within the space. Jeff Roach, chief strategy officer at SCS, says metaverse environments foster a culture focused on creating unique experiences rather than replicating real-world environments.
“Certainly you can still replicate real-world environments, but the point of the metaverse in many ways is to take advantage of the builder tools and to create new and fantastical worlds to be social in,” Roach said. “So our approach was to create what we’re calling SCS Beach, loosely based off of Christmas Cove in Laguna Beach, where some of our Costa Mesa office employees live. But of course, to bring in that fantastical element and connect to the real world, the team is adding a secret cave on the island that replicates a secret lounge space in our new Costa Mesa office.”
The space was also meant to go beyond an “explore and chat” environment which Roach said provide “low engagement in the long term.” The space will include interactive elements like a starship video game in which players can go head-to-head shooting at a target, a viewing balcony where friends can watch others play games, and a place for making presentations.
Internally, the space will be used for employee events like a virtual happy hour across its offices in Ottawa, Atlanta, Georgia and Costa Mesa. Externally the agency will use the space for panel sessions and webinars and experiment with client merchandising and creation of brand environments. The space, which was built by SCS's digital production team led by Chief Digital Officer Braden Bailey, took two weeks to build.
The agency will also be creating spaces in Decentraland and The Sandbox next. Its report will be presented in a keynote presentation in a Decentraland nightclub owned by NFT studio Night Shift.
“We feel it’s important for all brands to experiment with Horizon Worlds, Decentraland, and The Sandbox as well as to consider more traditional gaming experiences like Roblox and to think about how their brands can be experienced in these platforms and how modern brand strategy will be expressed in 3D immersive digital environments for brands," said Roach. "If retail design, package design, and point of sale and merchandising matter to a brand, the metaverse expression of the brand now needs to be considered as well.”
“Let’s bury the hype,” said Jonny Shaw, chief strategy officer at VCCP New York, explaining that marketers should stop trying to “predict the future of technology” and instead embrace what he calls the “immense and untapped potential of games as they exist today."
“The 'metaverse' is an exciting—but also a deeply misunderstood and misrepresented—concept,” Shaw said. "It's something that may happen in the future, but as it's not a fully formed thing yet. It's dangerous to try and predict what that future will look like. Crystal ball gazing is not usually a robust strategy. The world of gaming already has an array of amazing virtual worlds and communities (from Minecraft to Fortnite, GTA to Destiny, World of Warcraft to Roblox) which are far more compelling than any of the would-be 'metaverse' platforms.”
In February, VCCP launched its gaming offering, VCCP+, focused on what it calls the gaming "multiverse,” or the ecosystem of social media platforms and online communities that exist around games.
The agency also launched its Roblox office in February, which is a reimagination of its London office accessible by employees from all VCCP eight offices. The Roblox office features five floors and includes mini-games as well as Easter egg collectibles and homages to some of VCCP’s clients from across its global network. A key feature includes a meerkat enclosure inspired by Compare The Market, a price comparison site that has a Meerkat in its logo. Another is British mobile network O2’s blue robot mascot, Bubl. There are also NPCs (non-playable characters) inside, including VCCP Founders Charles Vallance and Adrian Coleman alongside “well-known and loved” office staff from VCCP London, according to a statement by the agency.
“Our version of the VCCP office in Roblox wasn't intended to be a vision of how we would work and collaborate in the metaverse," Shaw said. “It was rather meant as a playground for our staff and partners to come into to learn about how amazing and exciting Roblox is as a platform. It's where the world's kids are playing today, and that in itself is enough to be excited about.”
Shaw likened the current hype around the metaverse to “Second Life part 2.”
“What makes these [gaming] platforms even more exciting and compelling is the array of content and experiences which orbit around the core game experience,” Shaw said. “All these games have a galaxy of YouTube channels and content creators, Twitch streamers, Discord servers, online and IRL conventions and much much more, which make up a multiverse experience for the player. This multiverse of media and community that exists around the biggest games in the world today is what we see as the single biggest missed opportunity for brands and marketers.”
In February, Vice Media’s agency Virtue opened a headquarters in Decentraland called Viceverse. The agency hired architecture firm Bjark Ingels Group, also known as BIG, to design the building, which is a cube that has a tunnel that spirals throughout the building. The creation of the space was led by the agency’s innovation division, Virtue Futures, led by Global Executive Creative Director of Innovation Morten Grubak. Virtue Futures helped launch Coca-Cola’s first NFT project last year.
The Viceverse space includes “hidden gems,” such as an area where visitors can see the contact info for various Virtue leadership members for young creatives to reach. The space also provides limited-edition merch created by the agency, an area for fireside chats, and two floating red and blue pills that allow people to teleport to different parts of the building.
The goal of the space is to experiment and learn about the platform, Chris Garbutt, co-president and chief creative officer at Virtue said. Garbutt said there are more challenges in Decentraland right now compared to spaces like Roblox because Decentraland is built by “passionate people” that are building on the space simply because they enjoy it, whereas Roblox has “thousands of employees coming to work every day to build on the platform.”
“There are of course a lot of hiccups and challenges and it is a new space, but it's much more true to the real internet and that's why we thought it was the right place to be,” Garbutt said.
Wunderman Thompson opened a metaverse space within b-to-b metaverse platform Odyssey in January after publishing a report on consumer trends and brand opportunities in the virtual world. The bespoke space was created to educate clients and brand marketers about the customer experience and marketing capabilities of the virtual world. The space has areas for retail, gaming, conferencing, and “inspiration kiosks” throughout the digital area that offer insights from the agency’s research reports about the tech and trends as a whole.
The space was used as the set for Ad Age’s first virtual interview.
“The installation that we have that has captured the imagination of brand and clients, is in fact that retail space,” Gareth Jones, senior VP, global marketing director at Wunderman Thompson said during the talk in early March. “The reason for that is really simple. When people talk about the metaverse being the next iteration of the internet, it sounds a bit esoteric and I think people are unsure exactly what that means. But when you can go into a 3D virtual store and try on a piece of clothing and experience it on your avatar, which in the future can be dimensionalized onto your actual physical body, then it becomes intuitive. There’s a huge difference between going to a flat web page that is akin to a page out of a book and coming into a 3D environment like this.”
Since the space was launched it's accumulated 11,300 unique visitors, 4,300 hours streamed and 74 million impressions. In February, Wunderman Thompson’s Latin American creative teams also held a two-day event to explore the space and collaborate with various teams from different regions.
