A creative duo called Very Serious Partners is offering agencies their own personal virtual offices in the metaverse in exchange for hiring them. 

The offices were created in Decentraland, a virtual metaverse platform where virtual land is sold and purchased through cryptocurrency. Currently, the agencies represented are Mekanism, Preacher, Mischief NFA, MediaMonks, JungVonMatt, VaynerMedia, Droga5, UltraSuperNew and Uncommon.

If all this sounds confusing, the creative duo Alex Morris and Oliver Finel released an infomercial style video on Twitter directed towards those agencies to showcase the different offices they created in a plot of land they are calling “AdLand.”

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The video has already received responses from some industry executives online like Nils Leonard, founder of Uncommon London; Ben Phillips, group strategy director at Mekanism; Seth Gaffney, founder and chief strategy officer at Preacher; and Liam Brennan, global head of innovation at MediaCom. The duo even said they were able to schedule a meeting with Uncommon in Decentraland following the release of the video.

This isn’t the first time the two pulled off a stunt like this: Last year the duo created TikTok accounts of various agencies and held them hostage unless the agencies offered them a placement. The video garnered some “negative feedback” from anonymous emails, Finel confirmed, but was an overall success. That video led to them being invited to contribute ideas for a pitch for what eventually became Mark Cuban Experiments, which is a cultural experimentation engine from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

“We're just trying to stay ahead of the trends as much as we can and be those guys that agencies can come to who are maybe a bit more traditional and say, this is where you can go and this is what you can do,” Morris said.

It was their work with Zoe Scaman, one of the leaders of MCX, who is also Web3 expert, that helped inspire this idea.

“We’ve been learning from her knowledge because she is the ultimate voice on it [Web3] at the moment, '' Morris said. "I wouldn't say that we know everything about it because no one does and it's moving so quickly. I think you have brands and agencies springing up saying that they do get it, which in itself is ridiculous because it's changing day by day. So we wanted to poke fun at that a bit, but then also talk to the agencies we think are really cool and are future focused.”

From start to finish the project took two weeks to make, which included finding Decentraland architects for insight and then building the offices themselves using the Decentraland tools available.

The duo is open to various work in exchange for the office space and they've also promised a portion of the payments they receive will go to Crisis at Christmas, a charity that supports the homeless. 

“Totally into this creativity – Alex and Oliver have done it again,”  Geert Eichhorn, Media.Monks innovation director said. “But I’m not sure anyone can go around claiming they’re the first to secure a spot for agencies in the metaverse. (No matter how cool your avatar sunglasses are, or how dope your matching all-black virtual drip is.) After all, we built our office Minecraft back in 2020, and Sir Martin Sorrell is already meeting in the metaverse. Mad love for giving us the penthouse of the building though!”

“We don’t negotiate with virtual land pirates,” a spokesman for Mischief @ No Fixed Address added.

This type of stunt comes as the ad world has seen employees move into the freelance marketplace, which has become increasingly more crowded, making it a challenge for those looking to establish themselves.

“There's a lot of competition out there and it’s important to set yourself apart,” Finel said. “What's stressful about freelance is that you always want to stay in a job and not have any dry spells, which thankfully we haven't had any extended periods of no work. It’s exciting to be freelance. It's a bit scary that a lot of people are going into that direction as well, but it's definitely nice having that freedom.”

Decentraland and its virtual competitors have seen a fair share of interest recently. In mid-November, the nation of Barbados announced an agreement with Decentraland to build a digital embassy in the metaverse. In late November A plot of virtual real estate on Decentraland’s Fashion Street sold for a record $2.4 million. Just last week, Adidas Originals announced it bought a space in Decentraland rival Sandbox.

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