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How to Engage Employees & Recruit Talent Using the Metaverse

The hiring process is broken. Too many good candidates are getting overlooked for the wrong reasons and compatible career matches are dwindling. The problem? No concrete data. In our third webinar session of the four-part series, “Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse,” we chatted with Scoutible founder and CEO, Angela Antony, and Starmark’s Chief Digital Officer, Brett Circe, to learn more about talent recruitment and employee engagement in the Metaverse. Here’s what we discovered:

What’s Scoutible?

Angela Antony was looking for ways to improve the hiring game, so she invented her company, Scoutible; an innovative platform that uses award-winning gaming technology and data (developed by Harvard and Stanford scientists) to help people identify their professional skills, styles, strengths and passions in an engaging, accurate way. Once discovered, skills are used to empower candidates to find the right job for them and vice versa — all regardless of educational backgrounds or prior work experiences. Scoutible’s Meta world is currently in beta and we can’t wait to see where it goes next.

Beyond the Resume

According to Antony, “By creating a gamified solution, we can harvest the soft skills that matter most in the Metaverse and create real-life opportunities.” The game measures a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses to understand their professional styles. This way, everyone is seen for their strengths. Based on a resume alone, certain people would not have even been brought to the table. But thanks to Scoutible, they have been found as top performers in their field. Now, candidates can be hired for their skill sets over anything else.

A New Form of Head Hunting

Scoutible is also working to find people that fit the employer’s profile at a lower cost due to its accuracy and efficiency. For example, over 900 applications were placed for an engineering position, but there was one leading applicant over hundreds of Ivy leaguers: a full-time auto mechanic that taught themselves to code at night. This person may have easily been overlooked in a traditional hiring process. Antony makes an interesting point in that the employer or the prospective employee makes the decision for the job in the first ten seconds, meaning that first impressions are incredibly impactful. So, from a diversity, inclusion and belonging standpoint, the Metaverse really eliminates unconscious bias, as well as geographical barriers with its digital representation of the professional world. This enables companies to hire candidates based on their strengths instead of locations or resumes.

VR Brought the Culture Back

COVID-19 posed massive challenges to businesses world-wide. How will companies maintain a team when everyone is remote? Can coworkers really connect through Zoom? Brett Circe’s Starmark decided to roll with the punches and face the issues head-on — literally. They sent all employees (AKA Starmarkers) Oculus Quest 2 headsets. How did they train up their staff? By having them attend a virtual holiday tree trimming party dedicated to teaching them how to use VR. Brett recounted that the holidays are a great time to bring coworkers together to connect and unwind in fun and festive virtual environments — each that were a surprise to the teams every time. Thanks to holiday parties, happy hours, and hangouts in VR, Starmark’s culture was able to make the comeback it needed to post-pandemic.

VIRTUAL COLLABORATION

Of course the Metaverse has its advantages and disadvantages, but Circe finds that when employees wear the headset, they are fully immersed in meetings — without email, text or chat distractions. Starmark practices Agile Methodology, which heavily emphasizes individual interactions and collaboration over products and tools, and VR is the perfect place to gather for their “sprint retrospectives.” These “retros” are where teams celebrate their accomplishments, and debrief on their most recent sprint (the last two week’s worth of work). Upon going remote, each retro meeting has been held in different VR environments that generate more conversation and better focus than other virtual predecessors like Zoom or Google Hangouts. Starmarkers are finding collaborative projects in the metaverse to be increasingly fruitful, productive and as a bonus, downright fun — as long as you keep a straw nearby to hydrate.

Want to learn more about the Metaverse and Web3? Check out our full series, Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse, for tips on how to market your business holistically in a virtual world.

What You Need to Know About Finance & Legal in Web3

With a new world comes new currencies, transactions and laws. So, what does that mean for Web3 and the Metaverse? Since companies are now using NFTs to sell products, education, travel, and real estate, it’s time for businesses and marketers to hop on the bandwagon. A little intimidated by all this? Don’t worry. We asked WGMI Media CEO, Brett Malinowski, and Winston and Strawn’s Blockchain guru, Kimberly Prior, for some guidance in our second webinar, “The Financial and Legal Implications of Web3 for Business.”

A little intimidated by all this? Don’t worry. We’re here to break it all down for you.

THE BASICS

Blockchain. NFTs. Cryptocurrencies. Learn the terms to understand our new reality.

Cryptocurrency: Decentralized (AKA not owned by a bank or corporation) digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography. Cryptocurrencies run on a distributed public ledger called blockchain, a record of all transactions updated and held by currency holders.

Blockchain: What cryptocurrencies run on — a digitally distributed, decentralized public ledger that facilitates the process of recording the tracking transactions and assets. Similar to a public database, it can be audited by anyone. But it cannot be edited.

NFTs: Non-fungible tokens. A record on a blockchain associated with a specific digital or physical asset (started with art). It can be owned, sold and/or traded.

New Drop: A business launching a “new drop,” just means they are “dropping” a new, usually exclusive NFT collection of digital wearables (similar to a loyalty rewards program).

WEB3 BUT MAKE IT FASHION

According to Brett Malinowski, NFTs are the biggest opportunities of our lifetime because Web3 is about ownership by the people. Blockchain and NFTs are the infrastructure that makes this possible. You own your data, and you can sell it if you choose. You can buy, own and sell NFTs too, which can connect to both the digital and real world.

Fashion brands like Nike are starting to explore digital commerce with NFTs that have both digital and physical components. For example, if you want to dress up your digital avatar in Roblox with new Nikes, you can pay for the drop, and they will send you exclusive new pairs of digital kicks for your avatar, as well as physicals pair in real life. Pretty awesome.

ART PROVENANCE & COLLECTABLES

Is that an original Dali or a knockoff? People have been using art as a commodity since the beginning of time. What’s fantastic about Web3 technology is that blockchain establishes provenance (the history of ownership), so this was a natural place to start for artists.

Another trade that’s ripe for the NFT space are collectables. Stamps, Pokemon, and sports cards are becoming more popular in Web3 and becoming gamified in the digital space. As in real life, the rarer the card, the more money it’s worth. As a bonus, they are much easier to keep track of digitally than the old school way of hoarding them in your mancave or she shed.

LOYALTY & REWARDS PROGRAMS

Restaurants like Komodo in Miami are also starting to use NFTs for luxury food and exclusive experiences to be accessed via Web3. For example, our NFT expert, Brett Malinowski, bought an exclusive NFT that is available to only 300 people worldwide. The owner of each NFT earns the right to order a fun and exclusive dessert dining experience. While a $300 NFT and $60 dessert may seem pricey, since Malinowski owns the NFT pass, he can sell it to get his investment back (and possibly gain money doing so if the value increases).

Brett also mentioned Starbucks’ new rewards program powered by Web3, Starbucks Odyssey, that will “offer rewards members and employees the opportunity to earn and purchase digital collectible assets that will unlock access to new benefits and immersive coffee experiences.” Loyalty and rewards programs everywhere will be undergoing this type of huge digital transformation in the near future.

EDUCATION

Training and education are now being powered by NFTs. For instance, a training participants who owns an NFT may get additional access to a Discord with instructors, as well as additional materials beyond the standard coursework. When they complete the training, they can sell that NFT on the marketplace for the next person who wants to learn. This could disrupt the ongoing training and education sector, making it more accessible and affordable for people of all backgrounds to garner an education in their interest of choice.

LEGAL LEARNINGS

OK. So how does all this apply to the law?

SECURITIES LAWS

Securities Laws, enacted by The Securities Act of 1933, prohibit fraudulent sales and transactions in the capital market. However, regulators are having trouble updating and establishing what constitutes breaking the law in the virtual space. What marketers can do to protect themselves now is be sure they read the terms and conditions closely and use resources like CoinDesk or the Digital Chamber of Commerce to keep up to date with new and upcoming laws and/or double check their legal developments.

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

Kim Prior suggests all investors seek legal council, use licensing agreements and comply with privacy laws to protect themselves from lawsuits. You can expose yourself to risk if you have not evaluated the legal ramifications. Just offering NFTs for exclusive access to an experience seems okay, but what can get tricky is the concept of royalties or transactions-based compensation in the secondary market.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

According to Brett Malinowski, when it comes to protection from the law, “it’s all about the language.” He says, ironically, oftentimes the investors targeted are the ones trying to do it right. Prior states that lawyers now need to figure out the right model that will keep business owners in the clear, because large crypto clients want guidelines and regulations. As murky as Web3’s waters are, Prior also expresses that inclusivity is the core principle of cryptocurrency by providing people access to money that would not have been possible before.

Still a little confused? That’s okay, it’s a lot of information all at once, and we’re exploring a subject at the leading edge of technology. For more crypto guidance, Malinowski suggests following Crypto media outlets and other experts like Zeneca, JRNY Crypto, and Ellio Trades if you’re interested in learning more.

Curious about other elements of The Metaverse and Web3? Check out our full series, Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse for tips on how to market in a whole new (virtual) world.

Web3 and Metaverse Webinar Highlights

Hi there! We are sorry you missed season 6 of our Masterclass series, Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse. We recorded every session and you can watch all 6 hours from the entire season if you like! But, don’t worry. We’ve created a summary with key takeaways, action items and expert advice — all you have to do is answer a couple questions for us. See you next time!

How Brands Are Rewriting the Rules of Marketing in the Metaverse

Virtual reality has become the new reality for brands and business owners. It’s time to fully immerse ourselves in the Metaverse and Web3, because it’s taking off in the marketing world. According to the first of our four-part webinar series, “Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse,” here’s what you need to know when it comes to brand representation in the virtual space, straight from our guest experts’ mouths.

WHAT’S WEB3? WHERE’S THE METAVERSE?

Web3: The 3.0 or third version of what the internet is or what it may become. Web1 was the build out of websites, Web2 is defined as the rise of social media, and Web3 will be more about commerce among the people, and the ownership of your own information and data.

The Metaverse: There is only one Metaverse — just like there is only one Internet — but it does not yet exist. Immersive virtual spaces/worlds and experiences that are facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality do exist. One day, all of these worlds will be interconnected, as is the internet, at which point the Metaverse will be official.

IDENTIFY BRAND GOALS

Start by aligning with your brand’s goals and KPIs. What is it that your company is trying to accomplish? Where is your audience? Are they even in the Metaverse? If so, our experts agree that there are two key ways brands can market and establish their brand in the metaverse: either by having a product to sell, or an experience where people can have a positive brand interaction.

Miller Lite Metaverse Super Bowl ad

“What you’re finding brands do successfully, is this notion of creating a space where people can connect with one another that are either interesting, casual gaming, or social, or the like,” industry expert and Managing Director of Cuttlefish, Inc., Jay Miolla says. The Venture City partner and investor, Franchesca “Cesi” De Quesada Covey, echoes this sentiment, explaining that where Web3 differs from Web1 and Web2 are with longstanding relationships and engagements with a brand’s customers by creating exciting, fun, immersive experiences that connects people intimately with a brand. She emphasizes that it’s not just about amazing experiences, it’s also about “giving audiences something to take home with them after they leave.”

For example, Bacardi showed high utility by featuring musical artists in their Metaverse, putting their songs into NFTs, and giving away parts of the songs as NFTs to brand-loyal customers. This allowed customers to have an unforgettable experience, but also a way to take the brand home with them.

PLAY… BUT EXERCISE PRUDENCE

Miolla of Cuttlefish, Inc., suggests the first thing to do in the Metaverse is to let your curiosity run wild. Familiarize yourself with as many new virtual spaces as possible. Set up a crypto wallet, take notes, grab usernames, stockpile assets, research your competitors and see what they’re doing. Whether you’re exploring gaming or social interactions, take note of the experiences you find the most interesting and apply it to your future VR business endeavors.

Have fun, but don’t blow a lot of money up front before you’ve done some testing and learning, Starmark’s Chief Digital Officer, Brett Circe cautions. He recommends starting small by using some pre-existing assets to see what works and what doesn’t before investing too much in one direction. For example, does your company have any existing 3D assets like 360° photos or videos they may have used for other purposes? If so, test and learn with them in the Metaverse before emptying your wallet.

Interested in learning more about Web3 and The Metaverse? Check out our full series on Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse for tips on how to conquer the world’s next big digital transformation.

Making Our Mark on Florida Tourism

When it comes to creating memorable tourism work, we always put our heart into our home state. Starmark’s creative efforts in partnership with the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE) brought home six awards from the 2022 Florida Governor’s Conference Flagler Awards Ceremony, including Best in Show and four of their top honors — “The Henry” award.

Created by VISIT FLORIDA and named after pioneering developer and industrialist Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards honor stellar tourism marketing that helps maintain Florida’s position as a top travel destination.

A Best of Show and Several More Wins for Amelia Island

There’s a lot to love about Amelia Island, Florida, and our marketing efforts made sure to spread the word to both consumers and the meetings market.

Every month, we delivered Amelia Island eye candy to the inbox subscribers in a series of New York Times Great Getaways Emails. This campaign earned Silver in the Direct Marketing category.

Our three “Henry” winners for the Amelia Island CVB included the Amelia Island Meetings Brochure, which lured meeting planners back to the island post-Covid by showcasing the destination’s ample outdoor venues, amenities and hospitality. This stellar meetings brochure also won Best in Show.

Also taking home a Henry were our series of four Instant Experience Travel Guides showed the different facets of Amelia Island, including family travel, arts and culture, romance, and spa and wellness. And finally, the Amelia Island Event Ads were recognized with a Henry for combining video and storytelling to promote the island’s signature happenings.

“We appreciate the recognition our marketing efforts have received from VISIT FLORIDA and our peers, and we are proud of the work we’ve produced with our creative partners at Starmark.”
— Amy Boek, Chief Marketing Officer of the Amelia Island Convention & Visitors Bureau

An Award-Winning Reunion for PIE Airport

A timely and touching PR effort earned Starmark and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE) The Henry award for Creativity in Public Relations. Inspired by an unexpected cross-country friendship formed during Super Bowl® LV in Tampa Bay, Starmark and PIE, with support from airline partner Allegiant, planned a super reunion.

This activation went from the airport to throughout the destination, and local and national media picked up the story and ran with it.

“We are honored to receive such a prestigious recognition in the competitive and innovative Florida Tourism industry. I am very proud of our airport team and our partnership with our agency, Starmark.”
— Jeff Clauss, Airport Air Service Development and Marketing Director for St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport

WEBINAR SERIES: Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse

Starmark has joined forces with the Miami-Dade Mayor’s office and Bizhack Academy for Season 6 of #BizHackLive’s Digital Marketing Masterclass series, “Ways to Prepare Your Business for Web3 and the Metaverse.” Hosted by Dan Grech of Bizhack and produced by Brett Circe of Starmark, these live, interactive webinars will offer tips and tools from industry experts to help business owners navigate the next big wave of digital marketing. Register for the free four-part series below!

Masterclass 6.1: How Brands Are Rewriting the Rules of Marketing in the Metaverse

From a company’s look and feel to its voice and tone, learn everything you need to know about brand representation in the virtual world in the webinar series’ first session.

Guests

Franchesca “Cesi” de Quesada Covey

Partner @ TheVentureCity and Tech Innovation Advisor @ Miami-Dade County

Currently at TheVentureCity, Cesi invests in early-stage companies and becomes an extension of a startup’s team by providing strategic growth insights and capital. She also serves as Tech and Innovation Advisor to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Before joining TheVentureCity, she drove cross-Facebook company strategy development and built and scaled business development teams supporting Internet.org, SMB commerce, and crypto efforts – Novi and Diem.

Jay Miolla

Managing Director @ The Cuttlefish, Inc.

Part strategist, part creative and part producer, Jay has been on the forefront of immersive tech for over 15 years, inventing and launching bleeding edge digital experiences for major brands. Jay is motivated to make the seemingly “impossible”, very possible and to prove that this medium will truly change the world and the way in which we interact with it. A frequent speaker on the topic of AR/VR/MR, Jay is happy to share his knowledge with anyone interested in learning about the space.

Jacqueline Jones

Head of Strategic Partnerships – Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging @ LinkedIn

As Strategic Partnerships Lead for Global Inclusion at LinkedIn, Jacqueline’s role is to unlock significant economic opportunities for diverse groups via thought leadership, partnerships and new product offerings. She creates synergies between business partners to open new opportunities, products and markets. She is known for her collaborative approach and skilled leadership of cross-functional teams. Her areas of specialty include: business development, product management, strategic planning, market research, sponsorship design, and content marketing.

Masterclass 6.2: The Financial and Legal Implications of Web3 for Business

Going beyond the hype of NFTs and cryptocurrencies, this session will explore the practical business implications of Web3 with industry powerhouses.

Guests

Brett Malinowski

CEO @ WGMI Media

Brett Malinowski is an NFT entrepreneur that has established himself as a pioneer within Web3. With over 100K subscribers on YouTube, he has devoted most of his efforts educating on the early nuances of NFTs while showcasing the web2 business potential for viewership. He is the founder of WGMI media, one of the first media sources to focus exclusively on web3 and NFTs. Brett has had continued success with NFT brands like Magic Mushroom Clubhouse and NFT Academy that has been a central hub for creators, builders and NFT enthusiasts all over the world.

Kimberly A. Prior

Co-Chair, Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Group @ Winston & Strawn LLP

Kimberly is a leading financial services regulatory attorney, advising financial institutions and other businesses with respect to legal, regulatory, and corporate matters. She has extensive expertise advising clients in the distributed ledger, blockchain, and digital assets sector.

Masterclass 6.3: How to Engage Employees and Recruit Talent using the Metaverse

How did companies adjust to quarantine? Can virtual reality actually help with talent recruitment? Get these questions answered and more at this engaging third session.

Guests

Angela Antony

Founder & CEO @ Scoutible

Angela Antony is Founder & CEO of Scoutible, the first gamified predictive professional metaverse designed to help anyone find and achieve their purpose. Antony spent 9 years at Harvard studying psychology, law, and business with a focus on labor market policy. She then worked at the White House zeroing in on one issue – more than 50% of all new hires fail because the most accurate and unbiased hiring criteria known to exist—personality and cognitive strengths—are never measured in the hiring process. Antony founded Scoutible to bring the power of psychology and science to hiring.

Brett Circe

Chief Digital Officer @ Starmark

With all aspects of business and branding now touching mobile, social and apps, Brett ensures that client strategies and tactics integrate seamlessly in the digital realm, in real time. As an internet pioneer, Brett won his first e-commerce website award from Yahoo! in 1995. He has served as president of three technology companies: TKOnet, OmniPilot Software, and most recently, FanWise, a social-reward technology for which he holds two patents. He likes to talk about AR/VR/MR and the Metaverse, Mobile Commerce, Advertising, Apps and anything latest, greatest, newest, best.

Masterclass 6.4: Case Studies of How To Do Business using Web3 and the Metaverse

Real-life case studies. Failures and success stories. New technologies. The series’ grand finale live session will teach practical tips and tools to take your business to the next level.

Guests

Dr. Muhsinah Morris

Director of Virtual Reality Project @ Morehouse College

Dr. Morris is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the VR Project, “Morehouse in the Metaverse”. She believes VR provides a pathway for creating inclusion in society for the neurodivergent through immersive educational experiences that more specifically target vocational rehabilitation goals. She is affectionately known as Dr. M.O.M. (Molder of Minds) by all her students. She continues to mold the minds of educators and students globally in the Metaverse. Her future is authentic transformation of the educational system for our future leaders using immersive technologies in the Metaverse. More recently, she founded Metaverse United, LLC where she helps people find where they belong in the embodiment of the internet called the Metaverse.

Tommy Farr

Founder @ Metaverse Hospitality Consulting Group

Tommy Farr went to school for Hospitality and Business at FSU before graduating on to the St. Regis Atlanta to further train in the hospitality industry. From studying wine in Switzerland to working for Michael Mina to traveling the world consulting with the best hotels, Tommy maximized his knowledge within the hospitality world surrounded by some of the best teachers. When the pandemic hit, a new passion within web3 and NFTs took over and Tommy wanted to find a way to combine hospitality and web3. Metaverse Hospitality was born and the first hotels in Sandbox were built.

Nicholas Romeo

Sales Director @ Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures

Hospitality/Tourism executive with over 30 years experience. Nick oversees all sales at the attraction including events (3rd party resellers, youth operators, DMC’s and meeting planners), development of education programs, and expanding new educational areas and exhibits within the park.

Weather-triggered creativity beats winter forecasts for Amelia Island

After a successful welcome back for travelers as pandemic restrictions eased, in winter of 2021, Starmark and the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau wanted to find a way to inspire spontaneous getaways for travelers in winter-weary northern cities. The answer was an award-winning weather-triggered digital campaign that outperformed all estimates for media performance.

How to avoid getting iced out by other coastal destinations

With travel advertising ramping back up on the heels of pandemic travel restrictions, Amelia Island needed a smarter way to start a travel conversation to avoid getting drowned out by larger coastal destinations hocking the same old sun and sand pitch. The team needed an approach that was more targeted and more incisive to beat the heat from competitors.

A cool insight drives an even cooler execution

The driving insight for this campaign came from team members from the northern and midwestern states about the low points of winter. You know, those days where you can’t imagine it getting any colder — until it does.

Tapping into the visceral experiences of winter weather and the mindset of wanting to escape from slogging through slush or being cloistered in the house, our team concocted a tiered campaign approach that dialed up the escapism as temperatures dropped in DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

On any day where daytime temperature estimates dropped to a certain point, our standard campaign creative was replaced by the first stage of our weather-triggered ads. And on days with snowfall, a second creative iteration dialed up the appeal of a blue-sky getaway on Amelia Island.

It’s not every day that you see creative assets that are this eye-catching. I’ve worked on hundreds of creative builds in my career, but these really stood out. It’s the first time we’ve been able to build a format in such a personal way that takes a consumer through the entire journey end-to-end — brilliant strategy.
— Padsquad

Both creative approaches were tailored for winter-weary mindsets to grab attention and then pay it off with a quick Instagram-highlights-style tour of experiences awaiting travelers on the island.

Blue skies for the win

This is one of those campaigns where a simple human understanding won the day. We’re thrilled to see results that it worked even better than we expected.
— Dale Baron, Starmark Executive Creative Director

We knew the campaign was something special, but it performed even beyond our expectations. Our media partner reported engagement metrics more than 8x the benchmark performance for similar placements.

Between the end of December 2021 and end of March 2022, the two scrollers and the stories-style placements delivered combined impressions of over 3.1 million with engagement scores of 4.2%, 9.2% and 7.2%, respectively. All on a budget well below what competitors were spending during those months.

The approach clearly resonated with travelers, too, leading to a significant uptick in Amelia Island visitation during late winter and spring. And awards show judges also chimed in with a series of wins — two local gold ADDY awards, a district-level American Advertising award, an Adrian Award and a Hermes Award — for this clever, human-centric, weather-triggered campaign.

Capturing a Real-World Adventure in VR to Share With Travel Trade

A REAL-WORLD ATTRACTION CAPTURED IN VR: POWERED BY STARMARK

The Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures team tapped into Starmark’s virtual reality expertise to re-create the experience that Boggy Creek offers in a semi-scripted experience, sharing the breathtaking beauty of nature, including wetlands and wildlife, in an immersive VR experience.

Virtual reality can create entirely new worlds. But it can also bring the real world into a virtual one, making it possible to share unique, real-world places and geographies with those who have not been there in person.

With a compelling and innovative way to share the spirit of adventure they provide their guests even before their guests arrive in the Everglades, the Boggy Creek team gained a new sense of confidence and a new way to grow their business.

SHARING A REAL-WORLD ADVENTURE, ANY TIME, ANYWHERE

Tour operators and the travel trade are an important audience for Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures. They book entire buses of guests and recommend the park to hundreds of people traveling from all over the world. Most of these professionals have never been to the park, including many located in Europe, making it difficult to give them a familiarization tour. To help them understand the full Boggy Creek experience — and share the excitement and adventure with prospective guests — Boggy Creek sought a virtual experience that would bring it all to life by putting them right in the middle of the action. And to honor their time, we had to deliver it all in just a few minutes.

“The ability to give a tour operator in Germany or the UK a personalized tour while we are sitting in our office back in Florida is amazing.”
— Margie Bryan, Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures

The aim was to capture the thrill of whisking across the water as you spy turtles, birds and other wildlife in and around the sprawling walls of grass, encountering nature’s predators — including the American Alligator — from the safety of Boggy Creek’s U.S. Coast Guard-inspected airboats. Beyond the main attraction, Starmark showcases the breadth and depth of experiences visitors could choose. These included a seminole native village, gem and fossil mining, a baby alligator pond, the onsite barbeque restaurant, tiki bar, large pavilions, and the latest addition to the park, the butterfly encounter.

VIRTUAL REALITY AND 360° EXPERIENCES

Starmark created a VR experience that showcased the tours and activities Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures creates across the headwaters to the Florida Everglades.

Participants in VR can free roam explore the park, and hop on an airboat to enjoy a 2 minute scripted adventure showcasing everything the attraction has to offer.

In addition, the sales staff can meet with travel professionals in the UK and Germany in VR to give them a personalized tour of the property and explain everything a guest can do while in the park. These real-time interactive sales demos far exceed anything that Boggy Creek has done in the past with video or Zoom meetings alone.

“Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures is forward-thinking in their marketing and sales to the trade, and preparing for the metaverse now will give them a huge leg up on the competition in the future.”
— Brett Circe, Chief Digital Officer, Starmark

FUTURE WORLD-BUILDING

Phase one of the VR attraction was launched at the IPW trade show in Orlando, Florida. Future phases will continue to bring more Boggy Creek experiences into the virtual world. Prospective visitors will be able to explore, ask questions, buy tickets, and even be hosted as a metaworld in the Metaverse for guests around the world to enjoy 24×7.

Webinar: Expert perspectives on the Metaverse for marketers

Starmark is hosting an online panel discussion with these industry experts in VR to explore the Metaverse possibilities for marketers. Join us to explore the possibilities, perspectives, examples and questions that come with this emerging world.

Our VR Experts

Jay Miolla

Managing Director @ The Cuttlefish, Inc.

Joanna Popper

Global Head of Virtual Reality, Go-to-Market & Content Partnerships @ HP

Joanna is an award-winning Hollywood and Silicon Valley media executive with a track record of launching cutting edge content and technology to drive revenue, audience engagement and brand love. She currently leads HP’s initiatives for Go-To-Market and Location Based Entertainment for Virtual Reality. Joanna is passionate about supporting Creators and building out the Metaverse and XR Content Ecosystem. Joanna is executive producer on Double Eye Studios’ “Finding Pandora X,” winner of Venice Film Festival Best VR Experience and SXSW Audience Award for Virtual Cinema Spotlight. Joanna has been listed as “50 Women Can Change the World in Media and Entertainment,” “Top 50 Original Voices in VR,” “Top Women in Media: Game Changers,” and more.

Chris Madsen

Business Development @ ENGAGE XR

Chris believes that Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies will profoundly disrupt the way in which humans learn, play, work and socialize. The implications for shared experiences via extended realities will impact nearly every facet of our lives. Chris was an early adopter of modern Virtual Reality in 2013, I became active in the VR developer community to prepare for the impact immersive technologies will have on society. Ranked by Onalytica as a Top 100 influencer in both AR and VR, he keeps a close pulse on the social, educational, artistic and entertainment spaces of the VR, AR, XR movement.

@bcirce

Brett Circe

Chief Digital Officer @ Starmark

With all aspects of business and branding now touching mobile, social and apps, Brett ensures that client strategies and tactics integrate seamlessly in the digital realm, in real time. He maximizes the effectiveness of big ideas to achieve client goals and objectives. He investigates online opportunities in every advertising and marketing program. As an internet pioneer, Brett won his first e-commerce website award from Yahoo! in 1995. He has served as president of three technology companies: TKOnet, OmniPilot Software, and most recently, FanWise, a social-reward technology for which he holds two patents. He likes to talk about AR/VR/MR and the Metaverse, Mobile Commerce, Advertising, Apps and anything latest, greatest, newest, best.

A leading national public research university teams up with a leading advertising agency to achieve its goal

Starmark helped the University of Florida break into U.S News & World Report’s “Top 5” for public universities.

Finding a new fanbase

When you have a storied history of winning college football, basketball and baseball national championships, plus producing dozens of Olympians in everything from swimming to soccer, how do you change your reputation of being known as a “sports” school?

The University of Florida (UF) faced that challenge. Everyone knew the Gators, but what people didn’t necessarily know was that it was a leading national research university — discovering breakthrough solutions in agriculture, artificial intelligence, medicine and many other disciplines.

With a new brand platform that captured the essence of the university’s “Momentum,” UF enlisted the help of Starmark to roll-out the brand campaign; developing a variety of creative assets and finding the right media placements that would create game-changing results — all with the ultimate goal of breaking into U.S. News & World Report’s “Top 5” for public universities.

Bringing the brand to life

We began by developing an integrated media strategy that targeted U.S. News & World Report voters including higher education influencers and peers, along with government entities and elected officials. The plan was to shift their perception of UF in industry publications they consumed daily, as well as unique placements that would capitalize on their penchant for college sports.

We created an entire library of videos, display ads, podcast, print, emails and social units to amplify the Momentum story.

Business

Arts & Medicine

Agriculture

We also created a microsite that leveraged the new brand elements — from colorful graphics to tone and voice — that offered a rich user experience for all types of audiences; complete with micro interactions and animation to engage the viewer.

Making the Grade

Starmark’s partnership with UF did in fact contribute to the university moving into the “Top 5” — a prestigious honor that puts UF up there with some of the most well-respected brands in higher education. With a passion for higher ed marketing and a few Gator alumni on the Starmark team, this achievement was indeed a win-win.

Creating 100K new Play+ fans during playoff season

Starmark teamed up with Sightline Payments to create more than 100,000 new Play+ accounts during four months of NFL playoffs.

How?

Well, this success story started with a few simple insights and duking it out on the gridiron of data.

Winning Aspirations

Play+ is Sightline Payments’ proprietary gaming technology product, a FDIC-insured reloadable account to fund sports betting and other gaming activities, as well as daily spending. To date, this was the company’s largest effort to create new Play+ customers and re-engage lapsed account-holders. But to determine how many and where, we had to crunch a ton of data.

A Data-Driven Media Plan

We created a data model, based on sign ups over the last three football seasons, to determine how many new accounts we could expect organically. Then we applied the media plan and budget to the model to predict how much lift the campaign would provide. Finally, we identified a control market where no media would be placed to measure the accuracy of our model.

Our goals were to create new account sign-ups and re-engage accounts with no activity since last football season. This resulted in a two-layered media plan balanced based on a wealth of data to deliver the largest predicted return on ad spend.

Insights gave our creative a tight spiral

For the prospecting effort, the team used four key triggers from our consumer research as the basis for our concepts: illusory skill effects (feeling smarter/like a winner), the visceral biological rush of winning, being at the center of the action and instant gratification.

We tested a variety of concepts with audiences that mirrored our media audience to determine relative performance. The top performing concept, Get in the Game, was ultimately selected for production based on its clear articulation of being part of the action and receiving instant gratification for the win.

“It feels good to tap into the excitement and fun of sports betting. This campaign made us part of the conversation this season. And the sign-up numbers show that.”
— Courtney Zell, Sightline Payments VP of Marketing

Creating hundreds of media placements with a single shoot

Throughout the process, creative and media collaborated closely on the campaign idea and the shape of the effort. So by the time we had the concept nailed, we also had a complete view of how many individual master ads (16 total), variations (plus another 32), refreshes and retargeting versions (add another 80 ads, if you’re still keeping count) we needed to get the job done.

That intel allowed us to plan a wall-to-wall one-day shoot to capture still images, gifs and video to bring to life the instant gratification of our Get in the Game concept.

With the help of our friends (and wizards of both practical and digital effects) at Diamond View, we shot our two wall breakthrough scenes in single takes using custom-made destroyable props.

“I’ve never sweated so much on a shoot day. Pure nerves. We wanted it to feel completely real, and the only way to get that is to have the players come through a real wall. We did rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal to get the timing, the reactions and the marks for the talent absolutely perfect. Because once we destroyed the prop wall, that was it.”
— Jacob Edenfield, Starmark Group Creative Director

Two different sub-crews coordinated schedules throughout the day to capture six different variations of our master videos, while shooting hundreds of campaign images to give the effort enough variation to stay fresh throughout heavy runs on social, in display and through connected TV.

A game-winning touchdown

The campaign was the largest success to date for Play+. In addition to creating more than 100,00 new sign-ups, we saw a double-digit increase in the percentage of existing accounts who bet on games using Play+.

“This felt like our introduction to a much broader national audience. We’re very proud of how this effort came together.”
— Mandi Hart, Sightline Payments Chief Client Solutions Officer

The fans loved the campaign, but so did the referees. This effort took home a Silver ADDY and a Gold Hermes award from our industry peers. Most importantly, this campaign delivered serious returns on ad spend. Thanks to our media model and smart placements, this still ranks as the most efficient new account sign-up media effort Sightline Payments has run.

Generating charter school enrollment leads for the 2020-2021 year

Charter Schools USA and Starmark worked together to carry out a successful integrated lead-generation marketing campaign that contributed to a 63% increase in student enrollment for the 2020-2021 school year. We were able to reach this milestone during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the need to adapt was critical to our success. The campaign’s paid media plan included the latest digital marketing trends and gave the brand a strong presence that was optimized for 11 markets throughout the Southeast.

The Assignment

Over the course of the last several years, Charter Schools USA had experienced a rapid growth and expansion. They transformed from a smaller network of schools in South Florida to an education powerhouse with nearly 100 schools serving some 75,000 students in the United States.

Enrollment marketing tactics were mainly executed by individual schools without a formalized digital strategy. With Fall 2020 around the corner, Starmark was tasked with creating a consistent, unified approach to marketing that generated credible leads and applicants for more than more than 40 schools. Florida markets included Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Fort Myers and Palm Beach, while out-of-state consisted of North Carolina and Louisiana.

Our Paid Media Approach

The Starmark team elevated Charter School USA’s marketing strategy with a media-driven, lead generation umbrella campaign that unified the creative for each school, while still highlighting their individual benefits. The creative was also updated over time to stay agile and adapt to any challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, like mobile learning.

Media Plan

Using an omni-channel digital approach, the paid media strategy focused on marketing tactics reaching parents at the right time and place. The campaign was optimized to drive awareness, lead generation and ultimately enrollments. Each digital campaign also included a remarketing strategy, following the lead funnel through to enrollment.

Paid Social Media

Each school had an individual Facebook page, which enabled the Starmark team to promote key differentiators within the all paid social ads. Call-outs like free tuition, world language programs, extracurriculars, STEM, WISH, performing arts and college prep helped the schools stand out and caused parents to stop scrolling.

In-feed ads began as Carousels and eventually were evolved to Dynamic creatives, which optimize the message and visual to generate a personalized version for the user. Each ad directed users to pre-filled lead-gen forms that captured relevant information, putting users in touch with the online admissions office.

Starmark Media monitored the performance of each creative daily and collaborated with the Creative Team to provide insights on how to further enhance the campaign to prevent burn out and drive more leads.

Paid Search

Paid Search campaigns reached parents who were in the consideration phase and were actively searching for keywords related to schools in their county, including charter, public and private schools options.

Through the Google Ads platform, these campaigns helped generate more qualified leads by strategically targeting those who are most interested in the schools’ offerings the moment parents were searching for education solutions for their children. The ads directed to each market’s landing page to collect each user’s information for follow up interactions.

Display Ads

A display campaign generated awareness and provoked brand search, supporting all channels and driving traffic to the individual markets’ landing pages. The display ads targeted parents on multiple devices, following through on the lead generation strategy of the campaign as a whole.

Grand Opening Campaigns

Charter Schools USA continued its growth with two recent grand openings in the state of Florida: Winthrop College Preparatory Academy and Innovation Preparatory Academy (InPrep). It was important Starmark capture the brand essence of what each school was about. The team created Facebook Instant Experience Ads with longform storytelling that was the perfect way to introduce a new school to a new audience.

In-market radio spots and billboards were also utilized to reach parents beyond a digital landscape. The Starmark team set up 90-second interviews with InPrep’s principal and a 15-minute Public Affairs Show. The boards were strategically placed close to the school in high traffic areas, to serve as both directional and informational assets.

Grade A Results

The campaign ran from March-October of 2020. Overall, we garnered 11,435 leads from our efforts. Throughout the lifetime of the campaign, we were able to generate over 60,400,000 impressions with an average blended click-through-rate of .67% and an average cost per lead of $59.49. When the 2020-2021 school year arrived, enrollment numbers for participating charter schools increased by 63%.

Starmark’s marketing efforts helped create cohesion among all the markets; what was once sporadic individual campaigns became an aligned umbrella initiative with a central digital media strategy. In turn, more parents and students gained an interest, applied and enrolled, and gained an education that will create a brighter future for us all.

Read more about where we see the future of education heading in our article about VR in higher education, and check out our tips for adapting your brand to new tech and new media.

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