“Strap on your VR glasses; we’ve got a meeting” could become a common refrain for marketers.

Why? Several agencies and marketing firms have already invested in VR headsets like Meta’s Oculus, indicating that, one day, the metaverse could be the industry’s new Zoom.

Zoom in: Some are hosting annual summits in VR. Others are shifting meetings from Zoom to VR workspaces like Horizon Workrooms (which is currently in beta testing), or experimenting with VR glasses and platforms like Decentraland to better advise clients on the subject. One CEO told us he bought his employees Oculus headsets just so they could bond over activities like VR minigolf.

“The technology allows us to connect in ways better than having the bat phone in the middle of the conference table and everybody shouting into it,” Simeon Edmunds, SVP and creative director of Mediahub’s R+D Lab, told Marketing Brew. “We’re finding usefulness not just in helping us produce a better work product, but also in understanding what’s emerging.”

Work hard

Mediahub started using the metaverse in December—specifically rented land in Decentraland—as a recruitment tool to differentiate itself from its competitors, Edmunds told Marketing Brew.

• The agency has been setting up VR headsets in rooms at some of its offices around the world for employees to test out when they stop by, according to Edmunds.
• He estimated that more than 40% of Mediahub staffers globally have tried them out so far.

Bret Starr, founder and CEO of B2B marketing agency The Starr Conspiracy, which helps clients that are focused on the future of work and workplace technology, said he started experimenting with VR for work purposes after reading a 2020 New York Times article citing data showing employees weren’t missing the office experience.

• By December, he’d bought an Oculus headset for every employee and then some—a backlog for new hires and clients interested in VR. It cost about $50,000 for the hardware alone, Starr said.
• Now, “probably 10% of our agency is in the metaverse at any given time,” he said, doing anything from meetings to trivia nights to baby showers, activities they used to do via Zoom. “We now do those in the metaverse, and they’re much more engaging and fun,” Starr said.

Read the full story here.—AM

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Michelle Urwin is senior director of strategic marketing at Skai, a digital advertising platform.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? I’ve been fortunate to have worked on some amazing projects during my career—from big out-of-home campaigns (who doesn’t love seeing their ads plastered all over the city?!) to company rebrands and even the launch of a first-of-its-kind innovation center (complete with a Formula One experience). During my agency days, I was taught that B2B marketing doesn’t have to be boring, and it’s something I still live by today.

My all-time favorite project though was K in the Park—Skai’s annual UK customer and prospect conference. I wanted to tear up the rulebook on what a corporate conference should be and get creative. The festival-style event not only generated significant new business for Skai, but also won an award for best live event experience, too (a very proud moment!).

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I am a huge non-league football fan (soccer for those in the US!) and have supported my local team, Southport FC, from a very young age. It was actually there that my love for marketing began. One summer, aged 12, my parents sent me off to spend a week with the commercial director (supposedly for “work experience” but looking back, they probably just wanted me out of their hair!). After being exposed to the sponsorships, advertising, and community work, I knew that marketing was something I wanted to do for real.

Although I ended up in technology marketing rather than sports, my dad now runs the media team at Southport FC as a volunteer, so you will regularly find me helping him out and taking over the social feeds on a match day!

What marketing trend are you least optimistic about? I have watched in fascination at the rise of influencer marketing over the last couple of years. Out of seemingly nowhere, our Instagram and TikTok feeds are full of people promoting yet another skin-care or home-cleaning product. Now, I’ll readily admit that I am the first person to buy anything that Mrs. Hinch puts her name to, but I do wonder how sustainable the growth of this industry will be in its current form. The no. 1 reason it has worked so well is down to trust. But with so many influencers clearly in it for the money nowadays and having their authenticity increasingly questioned, brands have to be really smart about identifying the right people to align themselves with and how to invest their budgets most effectively.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? The psychology of marketing fascinates me, so Rory Sutherland, the king of behavioral science, is my must-follow. Meeting him at our first K in the Park event was a definite fangirl moment!

Memorial Day has come and gone. Some of the holiday’s mattress sales, though, are still trucking along.

Last week, Retail Brew explained why mattress sales are so big during Memorial Day weekend. Turns out, there are a few reasons why. But much of it comes down to timing.

• “June is often the month when many mattress companies introduce new products. And—duh!—mattresses are big, so to make room for the latest models, retailers have to clear last year’s pillowtops out of their warehouses and showrooms,” Retail Brew’s Andrew Adam Newman writes.

Three-day weekends help, too, as they “lend themselves to sales, especially for big purchases like cars and mattresses, where multiple members of the household may weigh in, comparison shopping is common, and impulse buys are verboten,” Newman points out.

Read his full story here for more fun facts about the mattress industry (no, it’s not called “memory foam” because of Memorial Day).—MS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Tokking shop: Content marketers, rejoice: TikTok has partnered with eight social media management platforms to let you publish, track, and manage their posts outside of the app.

Redd-handed: Peruse this handy infographic from Reddit outlining the platform’s best practices, including how to think about tone and which video strategies are best.

Metaverse, cont’d: Take a look at Instagram’s test of Avatar reactions in Stories.

Look-alike modeling for TV: Tatari helps you pinpoint similar inventory across linear and streaming TV, so you can confidently build media plans based on high-performing channels and reach the right people at the right time. Watch this short vid to learn more.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Are you one of the 83% of Marketing Brew readers planning to make a career change this year? Be sure to check out our Marketing Brew Job Board for 300+ new job openings!

Today’s featured openings:

• Account Director, Global Strategy at Nike Communications
• Director - Global Customer Marketing Strategy at Validity
• Director, Product Marketing at MediaMath

See more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• The upfronts nearly forgot about TV’s biggest, oldest audience
• No budget, no worries: How to create a successful influencer gifting strategy
• Is paying influencers in free product ever okay?

The fourth season of Stranger Things, which debuted on Netflix this weekend, has another batch of brand and product integrations. Which of the following brands has not inked an official Stranger Things tie-in?

1. Domino’s
2. H&M
3. Baskin Robbins
4. Fritos

Keep scrolling for the answer.