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6 things we’ve learned after using the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality headset for over a year.

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already in our second year of everyone at Starmark using an Oculus Quest 2. We distributed the headsets in late 2020 to assist us working remotely and as a thank you for working under the pressures of a pandemic. Since then, all new hires have also received a Quest 2 as part of their onboarding.

One of the great things about working at Starmark is that we all feel like family, and the team really missed seeing each other in person while we all sheltered in place. These virtual reality (VR) headsets changed that, allowing our team to have meetings that better represented the in-person interactions and communications we were used to before the pandemic. Suddenly, our get-togethers again included eye contact, high-fives — even clapping — and more importantly, no interruptions.

Now that everyone has been meeting in VR for over a year, we decided to take a look back to see what we learned, what works and what doesn’t.

But first, the backstory

The Starmark Innovation Lab always kicks the tires on new technologies to understand marketing applications for our clients. Augmented reality and virtual reality were no exception.

We have been developing 3D renderings of products and packaging since the 1990s. In 2014, our first foray into augmented reality in for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment was a huge undertaking, long before AR frameworks and toolkits existed. We learned a lot from that experience – and gained a lot of recognition for it, too.

We had also experimented with Google Cardboard for ourselves and our clients, giving them out to understand a simple implementation of VR. By 2017 we got the Oculus Rift to explore how to take our many years of 3D and AR experience into a dedicated virtual reality device. During our experimentations with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, one of the major drawbacks was that both devices required a powerful PC. So when the Oculus Go came out in 2018, we saw the ability to bring these immersive experiences to the masses on an inexpensive platform. At our holiday party that year, we demonstrated a huge Augmented Reality project for the MIA airport, and gave away an Oculus Quest Go as a door prize to get people excited about it.

Launching our current world of VR

March 2020: the U.S. shuts down for the Covid-19 pandemic. As an Agile organization, this really didn’t affect our ability to plan or run work for our clients. Most of the tools we use on a daily basis were already in the cloud. The kinesthetic act of writing user stories in an Agile roadmap migrated to the cloud, and the team didn’t miss a beat.

The mission of the Lab was now to identify ways we could maintain our company culture when nobody could see each other in person. Google Hangouts only gets you so far in a creative environment, so we started looking at business meeting software on the Oculus Quest (version 1 of the headset). Like any burgeoning industry, there were a lot of people trying to elbow into this space.

Over the summer of 2020 we tested out Bigscreen, VR Chat, vSpatial, Spatial, Immersed, MeetinVR, AltspaceVR, Alcove, Mozilla Hub and probably some others we are forgetting. It was a lot to sort through and run test meetings with, but the experience was full of lots of learning and a good bit of fun. What we discovered is that every platform had its strengths and weaknesses, and many of the strengths in these platforms weren’t exactly what we needed at the time. For our needs, we decided that Spatial would probably be the best.

Spatial was a good fit for us when we were getting started in virtual reality
Spatial was a good fit for us when we were getting started in virtual reality
Spatial was a good fit for us when we were getting started in virtual reality

Oculus Quest 2 announced

September 16, 2020: the Oculus Quest 2 was announced by Facebook with a starting price that was $100 less than the Quest 1 when it launched. What an incredible price point for a faster and lighter free-standing wireless headset. Suddenly, this Lab experiment was looking like it was going to become a “reality” at Starmark.

After making the decision to go all-in on VR for the staff, it turns out sourcing 45 headsets during Fall of 2020 was not as easy as we’d expected. It was a newly released product, with order limits at major retailers, even with a corporate account. But through a series of incremental orders, we were able to secure enough headsets for the entire Starmark team. Now we just had to get them delivered without spoiling the surprise.

Throughout the pandemic, Starmark has been sending monthly care packages to the team to keep us all connected. In November 2020, we decided the next care package, scheduled for December, would be the VR headsets for everyone. We made a small welcome book to go with it, which included some customized onboarding instructions and an invite to meet in Spatial for our first Agile Sprint Retrospective in VR.

*Care package #7, including the Oculus Quest 2*

A typical Agile Sprint Retro, which we hold during the last hour of the last day of each two week sprint, goes like this — we review the work we accomplished that sprint so the rest of the company can celebrate the success. We also do announcements like birthdays, anniversaries, new business wins, client updates and the like. Then we “retro” the sprint, and everyone at Starmark has an opportunity to introduce any topic on an index card to describe how we can run the next sprint better. This process is at the heart of being a learning organization. We’ve been doing it for more than six years, and we’ll never stop. Because as things change, we always want to do better — forever.

Our 2020 retros in traditional video meeting software were fairly sedate affairs. Everyone still participated, but the experience certainly lost a little of the excitement of our in-person retros. Well, our first retro in VR was certainly a return to form for the Starmark team. Each time a new person appeared in the retro room, everyone already in the room hooted, hollered and laughed, giving hugs and high fives. Several simply couldn’t stop laughing about how cool it was. Then the next person appeared, and and the same ritual repeated itself…for the first 15 minutes. It was great, and everyone really enjoyed it. Once we all got acclimated, we were able to conduct our retros just like we were in person, showing the work, doing the announcements, and then everyone got to type a note card and stick it on the wall in VR, as usual. The excitement was back. The engagement was back. The connection was back.

And that’s why we’ve been doing our Agile Retro in VR ever since. And because of the great experience, we’ve moved several other meetings to VR — including our February 2021 company meeting, which you can see here:

Over a year later, what have we learned?

Well, as a learning organization, it makes sense to start by asking questions. So we conducted a staff survey, and here is what Starmarkers had to say about their experiences over the last year and change.

1. Using VR beyond work

Over half the staff said they use VR for more than work meetings at Starmark. Other uses mentioned include gaming, exercise, entertainment, meditation and Netflix/movies.

2. What do people like most about virtual reality?

Even though people are working remotely, they love seeing their colleagues in meetings. It’s almost like being together in person. Everyone is more focused and engaged because there are less distractions in VR. They love feeling so immersed. It’s a fun way to work, and it adds an element of excitement. Discussion and chit-chat are way better in VR than a video meeting.

3. What do they like the least?

For slideshows and presentations in VR, the clarity of small text really suffers and can be hard to read. Anything that lasts more than an hour can get uncomfortable when wearing the headset. Also, there is not a very good way to take notes in VR. Forgetting to charge the headset before a meeting can mean you have to be tethered during the meeting. And, there’s the issue of motion sickness. It can take a while to get your “VR legs,” but there are things you can do in VR to prevent motion sickness. Overall, we learned that everyone progresses at their own pace. Some team members had no issues whatsoever, others are taking a long time to get used to this brave new world.

4. Some additional insights we didn’t expect to uncover

Some people are more engaging in virtual reality than they are in the real world. Their personality just comes through better. That was certainly an unexpected finding. Watching someone experience VR for the first time is always exciting, and the Starmark team has certainly found some great uses for the tech. There are some very cool apps that put you into the shoes of someone else, which really changes your perception and gives you empathy. Not only that, several have experimented with ways to combine AR and VR to create a seamless experience.

5. Where do we think virtual reality is going for our clients?

Virtual reality seems like an obvious application for education and travel, and there will be a lot more done in these areas soon. Being able to transport a client into an environment to showcase our vision is a much more effective way to show a big idea — especially for things like activations, trade shows and events. VR in fitness and social spaces is probably going to grow as well.

*Inside a VR snow globe for our holiday party prep.*

6. What apps do we use for VR meetings today?

A few months into 2021, we started to realized we’d outgrown what Spatial could provide for us. New meeting apps started to appear, some with far superior functionality. We switched to EngageVR around March, which has a lot of features that support online meetings — custom environments, custom objects, spatial audio, participant controls and a whole lot more.

We started to invite our clients and some prospects into virtual reality meetings with us. We hosted meetings for about six different clients last year in VR in industries including education, travel, healthcare and B2B.

We also signed up for the Engage developer program, and our development team — which has been using Unity to develop for AR and VR — is now up to speed on deploying our objects and environments in Engage. Development for the Oculus Quest 2 is an area that the team enjoys as they learn new skills in a platform they not only enjoy, but can showcase to the rest of the staff at Retro too.

Facebook then went all-in, renaming itself to Meta in honor of its goal to build the metaverse. We are all fluent in VR and ready to be on the metaverse journey with our clients.

Let’s get together in VR on Star Beach!
Let’s get together in VR on Star Beach!
Let’s get together in VR on Star Beach!

Want to have a meeting in virtual reality?

Contact us to set up a meeting in virtual reality. We have solutions for education, healthcare, travel and B2B ready to go, and can design, create and build any solution in virtual reality that can be imagined. We love exploring big ideas on this big new platform.

Big digital and creative ideas bring home major wins at this year’s American Advertising Awards gala

This year’s awards gala proved quite a haul for the Starmark crew, with a total of six big wins for Amelia Island, Play+ and our Starmark VR Company Meeting. Here’s a look at the work that won.

Amelia Island Weather Triggered Ads take home two Gold ADDYs and Best of Interactive

The big winner of the night was our Amelia Island Weather Triggered Ad Campaign for Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau. This clever campaign extension triggered high-engagement, cheeky ad units when the weather in Northeast markets dipped. These dynamic units offered an invitation to get out of the snow, slush and cold in favor of clear blue skies. The effort netted two category Gold ADDYs for web advertising and data-driven media. Best of all, this entry walked away with the show-wide Best of Interactive honors, thanks to its unique use of data to drive the creative and media effort.

It was truly a thrill to see this work win this year. I’m so proud of our team for creating something that was such a perfect marriage of audience insight, data and sheer creativity
Dale Baron — Executive Creative Director, Starmark

Starmark’s VR Company Meeting takes a Gold ADDY

Back in 2021, Starmark hosted our first company meeting completely in virtual reality. And at this year’s competition, the effort takes home a Gold ADDY for industry self-promotion. You can read all about the experience — or just watch the video, like the judges.

Bringing our team back together safely during a global pandemic was a treat, and we’re honored that the industry recognized the innovation and spirit that make our team unstoppable.
Jacqui Hartnett — President, Starmark

A Silver ADDY goes to the Play+ Football Launch

In 2021, we launched an ambitious fall effort to entice sports fans to try out Play+, the payment platform tailor-made for online sports betting. In addition to more than 100,000 new sports betting accountholders that we won over this year, apparently the awards show judges like the work, too.

I’m so happy to see this campaign recognized. It was awesome enough to be part of this year’s football season excitement. This win just brings it all home.
Brett Circe — Chief Digital Officer, Starmark

About the American Advertising Awards

The American Advertising Awards are the largest and longest running creative competition in the advertising and marketing industry. With over 30,000 submissions each year, taking home the competition’s signature ADDY award is a high honor. Entries that win at a local level are then judged again at a district and national level. Work that places at all three tiers of the competition is universally considered the year’s best of the best.

6 Tips for Avoiding Nausea in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality — especially on the Oculus Quest 2 — can be fun, entertaining, collaborative and productive. But, it’s none of these things if an intense session in a VR environment makes you feel like you’re gonna spew all over your actual environment. Yes, just like traditional motion sickness, nausea in VR is a real thing. So the team at Starmark put together 6 tips you can use to prevent nausea for a more enjoyable virtual reality experience.

Before You Begin

If you start to feel nausea when in virtual reality, STOP IMMEDIATELY.

Just like sea sickness, you cannot simply “press on through” it. We’re now into our second year working and meeting in VR at Starmark, and this was a lesson a few of our team members learned early in. In fact, if you try to press on once you feel sick, you are actually training your brain to think that the VR headset causes nausea. Eventually, just the act of putting it on — or even just looking at it — might cause your brain to trigger those feelings.

What Causes Nausea in VR?

When what your brain sees, hears, smells and feels are not in sync.

Normally I see just fine, but in VR things are “blurry”
My head is not turning, but, in VR I am “looking around”
I am standing still, but in VR I am “walking”
I am seated, but in VR I am “standing”
I am inside, but in VR I am “outside”

While knowing the cause of something doesn’t always help you cope, it’s helpful to gain a bit of knowledge anyway. The good news is that there are tips you can use to immediately reduce nausea so that you can have an enjoyable experience in virtual reality! Let’s review our tips for preventing nausea in virtual reality!

1. Set Your IPD (Interpupillary Distance)

Interpupillary Distance, or IPD, is the distance between the center of the pupils of your eyes. The lenses of VR devices — like the Oculus Quest 2 — allow you to adjust the lenses in the head mounted display to closely match your own IPD.

If your IPD for rendering is set to a value smaller than reality, it makes the world seem bigger, and vice-versa. Not only that, an improperly set IPD can causes the images in your headset to seem blurry or out of focus.

You can adjust the Oculus Quest 2 to better match your personal IPD.

IPD Range	Lens Spacing Setting
61 mm or smaller	1 (narrowest, 58 mm)
61 mm to 66 mm	2 (middle, 63 mm)
66 mm or larger	3 (widest, 68 mm)

There is a free App on the app store called “Eye Measure”. Point it at your face and it will calculate your IPD.

2. Ensure Your Headset is Comfortable

In addition to IPD, ensuring that the headset is adjusted for clarity and comfort is also paramount. If what you are viewing is not sharp, or, the headset is causing discomfort, this can also cause nausea.

The Oculus Quest 2 is more adjustable than you might realize. The top strap should support the weight of the headset with the crown of your head if you adjust the velcro tab. You can also pivot the swing arms on the sides of the headset to get a close face fit and proper angle for comfort and clarity. You can also try the spacer provided for people with glasses, even if you don’t wear glasses. Several Starmarkers who don’t wear glasses have commented that using the spacer has helped them, regardless. Lastly, a 3rd party Quest 2 strap can reduce the strap pressure and create more balance on your head.

Try to pivot the headset. You can also try using the glasses spacer — even if you don’t wear glasses. You an also try 3rd party head straps which can be a lot more comfortable.

3. Look With Your Head, Not Your Hands

One of the first things you learn before you even put on a VR headset is how the controllers work. However, using the joystick to “look” around will move the screen view in front of your face to the left and right, which creates a disconnect with your brain. Looking around by moving your head is more natural.

TIP: If you need to look around in 360°, you can sit in a swivel chair, or, stand inside your guardian.

4. Teleport Instead of Walking

“Walking” with a controller can also create a disconnect with your brain. After all, you are not really walking, but in VR it looks like you are. Regardless of what your eyes are seeing, your inner ear can also feel that you are not walking. Try to Teleport instead, which transports you from a spot to a new spot without walking. Many popular apps in the Oculus store offer these types of comfort settings that allow you to adjust how you turn and move in VR.

TIP: You can even “blink” when you teleport to reduce motion sickness even more.

5. Stand IRL When You Are Standing in VR

If you are seated in real life, but standing and walking around in VR, it can cause a disconnect in the brain. Standing in both environments creates alignment. When combined with the tip above of looking by turning your head, standing gives you 360° of freedom to look around versus the more limited options of looking and turning with a controller.

TIP: you can “swing your arms” while walking in VR to create a more natural connection for your brain.

6. Ensure a Comfortable Environment

Using VR can raise your temperature. Certain VR activities can even give you an intense workout. Lower your AC if needed, and pay attention to your breathing. Slow, steady breaths can make your body more relaxed.

Including a fan for air circulation — especially when you are doing an “outdoor” VR activity — can trick the brain into thinking you are outdoors enjoying a nice breeze, reducing nausea even more.

Get Your “VR Legs”

Just like a fledgeling seafarer finding her sea legs, it can take some time to adapt your body and mind to VR. Not every tip above will work for everyone, but the good news is that with just a few minor adjustments, you can have a much more enjoyable experience in VR. Here’s how to get started.

Practice these tips in a short session, then end the session on a positive note.
Next session, try to go a little longer.
Eventually, you will have no problem with longer sessions in VR and look forward to having a more enjoyable experience every time.

Building Audience Awareness for Mobile Eye^® by 7Signal^®

Starmark created a strategic media plan and comprehensive marketing campaign for Mobile Eye by 7SIGNAL that would reach a B2B audience of IT professionals, from network engineers to C-level, in order to build awareness of the capabilities and benefits of automated digital endpoint monitoring with Mobile Eye.

The Challenge: Making Mobile Eye Top-of-Mind

Mobile workforces, fulfillment centers and hospitals are just a few of the enterprise organizations that rely on Wi-Fi to keep their thousands of devices and workers connected. When even one of their digital endpoints loses a connection, the effects can be monumental, even dire. Effective digital endpoint monitoring can prevent this, and that’s where Mobile Eye comes in.

Lost productivity due to network issues can have a trickle-up effect, first affecting the worker, and then becoming a Help Desk ticket. As it becomes a user experience issue, it reaches the IT Manager until it escalates to the CIO, the Director of IT and ultimately the Vice President of IT as a cost issue.

7SIGNAL needed a plan that would reach and speak to all of these audiences and decision-makers. Likewise, healthcare, warehouse and manufacturing industries had historically been the primary markets for Mobile Eye, so we needed to nurture these top-performing markets.

The Solution: Help the Audience Visualize

The Starmark team developed the “Connect the Dots” concept, which would work hard as the first touch point, getting the Mobile Eye name and credentials in front of our B2B audience as well as give them insights into what’s at stake. This concept focuses on the network oversight Mobile Eye provides as it helps enterprise companies maintain thousands of wireless connections in order to sustain productivity and staff satisfaction.

Prospecting ads provided the big picture, conveying the purpose and benefits of Mobile Eye in a concrete, creative and compelling way. Retargeting ads included compelling proof points, such as the ability for the IT department to reduce downtime by 43% and spend 59% less time troubleshooting when they implement Mobile Eye.

Refinement Through Testing

To bring this idea to life, the campaign uses a graphic that symbolizes a system of workers and endpoints. Through testing we learned that viewers immediately got the symbolism of what we were trying to depict and appreciated how the graphic quickly communicates complexity and connectedness. Testers also expressed a preference for copy that was direct, clear and concise.

Using Testing to Optimize the Campaigns

We performed preference testing on headlines, taglines, images and compositions during the concepting phase to guide us as we refined the creative. We focused on a specific demographic that mirrored our target audience as we learned what resonated with them.

Mobilizing the Audience

After the launch of the campaign, we saw an increase in qualified inquiries requesting information, scheduling a demo, requesting information and completing a form to receive downloads, such as the infographic.

The 7SIGNAL sales team also reported a noticeable increase in “first meetings,” which is important because 70% of first meetings end up in a demo or trial, getting them that much closer to a closed sale.

Launching an innovative, new B2C and B2B travel brand

Getting the Brand Off the Ground

Starmark helped new travel company “NextTrip” take off with branding efforts and digital campaigns for each of its products.

Monaker Group (now NextTrip Inc.) came to Starmark with the idea for a novel travel brand, needing assistance setting it in motion. The trick was finding a way to stimulate brand awareness not only for the parent company, but also for its sub-brands in the consumer, corporate travel and software categories.

The solution? To create the NextTrip monobrand. This means there is one consistent brand name and mark applied across all products: NextTrip Journeys, NextTrip Business and NextTrip Solutions. Using Starmark’s North Star Branding process, the team collaborated with the client to define their organization and brand. They built a clear, unified brand experience built upon a personality, identity and positioning platform of “Architects of the Extraordinary.” This platform would inform all naming, positioning and brand marks to come.

The Starmark team created NextTrip brand guidelines, which incorporated a messaging strategy, a manifesto, sample ads and brand marks for each line of business. The team wrote and designed corporate website NextTrip.com, in addition to creating social channels and refreshing them with branded cover photos and organic posts.

Are We There Yet?

NextTrip Journeys

NextTrip Journeys curates personalized vacation experiences for destinations spanning the globe. Starmark concepted and developed a campaign for NextTrip Journeys titled, “Dreamed by you. Designed by us.” The campaign theme was chosen through a series of user tests. It strategically gave consumers a clear idea of the brand’s accommodating function and role, while playing up the dream phase of planning a vacation.

Display ads and paid social videos were executed with a focus on cruising. An emphasis was placed on the Caribbean since it was the most accessible for families after a year without cruising in 2020. All imagery showcased elevated, vibrant and intriguing cruising experiences.

The Starmark team created a Facebook Instant Experience Ad to give users a full picture of the personalized cruise offerings from NextTrip Journeys. All ads drove to a landing page that captured leads, encouraging them to speak to a travel specialist.

NextTrip Business

On the B2B side, NextTrip Business is an all-in-one online corporate travel and expense management solution with a large inventory of travel options and discounted rates. Starmark was tasked with creating social campaigns targeting HR and administrative professionals to get them to subscribe to the service for their companies.

Dynamic static ads and in-feed videos positioned the tool as “Your next great business travel solution” to introduce the product to the market. They each featured compelling benefits that informed users why they should subscribe. Starmark created a landing page for ads to drive to where users could request a demo.

NextTrip Solutions

Other B2B initiatives include NextTrip Solutions, which features two software offerings: ConNextions and Velocity. These technologies make the jobs of alternative lodging property managers, wholesalers, distributors and other travel industry players easier and more efficient.

Starmark created a one-sheet for ConNextions by NextTrip Solutions that succinctly summarized the vacation rental and alternative lodging inventory for distributors, in addition to a detailed landing page.

For Velocity by NextTrip Solutions, the team developed a LinkedIn campaign to attract property managers to request a demo.

NextTrip Solutions Travel Software products

Next Stop: Results

The NextTrip brand successfully launched due to a collaborative effort from the Starmark and NextTrip teams.

NextTrip Business: Reduced cost per lead (CPL) by 70%
NextTrip Journeys: Increased lead volume by 45%, while maintaining a flat CPL.

Starmark rings in the 2021 holiday season at The Main

On December 1, 2021, we were thrilled to welcome clients and friends of Starmark to our new HQ at The Main Las Olas. After a year off, it was a joy to bring everyone back together for great food, camaraderie, a celebration of the accomplishments of the past year and a look at the future ahead.

If you didn’t get a chance to join us, here’s a recap.

VR + IRL party interaction

One of the highlights of this year’s party was an extension into VR. We hosted several remote friends of the agency in VR. Not only that, we also created a way for in-person party guests to interact and catch up with our VR party, even if they didn’t want to don a headset themselves.

This VR and real-life party crossover was made possible using Engage, a platform where Starmark is a certified development partner. And you can expect to hear lots more about additional VR applications throughout 2022.

15 new clients, and several old friends rejoin the roster

Since our last party in 2019, Starmark has added 15 new clients to our list of partners. Amelia Island CVB, Barry Ball & Associates, Broward Health, Conscious Certified Hotels, General Assembly, Hasbro Resorts, Hilton, Greystone Creative Group, NextTrip, OPSWAT, 7 Signal, St.Pete Clearwater International Airport, Tafer Hotels & Resorts, Talent Forge and University of Florida.

We’re also welcoming back Broward College and Carnival Corporation to ring in the new year with some exciting new projects.

An award-winning team

As if there wasn’t already enough to celebrate, Starmark is also raising a glass to some major award wins and recognitions:

We were named #1 Creative Agency in North America on the Mobile Marketing Association Business Impact Index
This year we won four Smarties North America and Smarties X (global) awards, including one for our VR company meeting
Won 4 international Marcom Awards for our client this year
Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau received three Flagler Awards this year at the Governor’s Conference for Tourism
We’re in our 6th year of practicing Agile Methodology
The Starmark Innovation Lab has a new patent pending involving blockchain technology

Great food, great company and a great evening of celebration

Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but they don’t taste very good. So while you’ll have to wait for next year’s event to enjoy some of the best passed bites in Fort Lauderdale, you can still check out all the other fun on our Facebook photo album of an amazing night at our new HQ.

Starmark Brings Home Multiple 2021 Smarties Awards

Starmark is thrilled to announce that our efforts to deliver strategy, growth and innovation for our clients have once again been recognized with Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) 2021 Smarties X and Smarties North America Awards. The Smarties X awards are not only the very first marketing award recognizing innovation across the globe, it’s also the world’s highest achievement in regards to honoring “the X factor” — innovation that results in significant business impact for brands, agencies, media companies and technology providers.

Silver Award | Starmark: Mobile App Category

Our purpose-built, custom Depositions.com app won a Smarties X Award in the Mobile App category. This platform allows attorneys and legal assistants to stream, clip and share videos and exhibits in the cloud. This innovative software project was born out of the necessity to provide lawyers and legal professionals with secure cloud access to their video depositions, transcripts and related files, allowing video streaming, collaboration and productivity to be right at their fingertips.

Together, we architected a cloud-based mobile app and website platform that can be leveraged by legal professionals nationwide to solve court reporting service pain points, such as easier clipping tools, heightened security and the ability to use the app sans WiFi. In addition, the Starmark development team included the ability to store related files and exhibits, such as documents and photographs, making sure transcripts synced with video. We’re excited to report that after Depositions.com was released, it garnered rave reviews from users across the country.

“This win recognizes our team’s innovative tech skills. It was a challenging and rewarding endeavor for both the client and Starmark.”
— Dale Baron, Executive Creative Director at Starmark

North America Silver | Starmark: XR Category

The Starmark Innovation Lab initiated a VR experiment aimed at improving our employees’ social connection after 2020’s move to remote work. The results? Remarkable. So remarkable that this VR effort earned Starmark a highly regarded Smarties North America Silver Award in the XR category.

Company-provided VR gear was given to every remote worker, uniting Starmarkers for our agency’s annual holiday party and company-wide meeting — all together, in one virtual environment. The immersive experience architected by Starmark’s Innovation Lab was so engaging and productive that it took home a Smarties Silver Award.

“We’re really excited that our effort to keep the team engaged was recognized by the Smarties. The experience truly took our virtual meetings to a completely new level.”
— Brett Circe, Chief Digital Officer at Starmark

North America Silver Award | Starmark: Lead-Gen Strategy Category

Our client Charter Schools USA, one of the largest and highest performing education management companies in the United States, tasked Starmark with creating a consistent, unified marketing approach for more than 40 participating schools. The goal was to drive awareness, gain leads and advance enrollments — all in the midst of a global pandemic.

Starmark was more than up for the challenge. By using a centralized digital strategy, including in-feed carousels, dynamic display ads and Instant Experience ads for new school launches, we were able to capture each schools’ unique brand essence with a long-term storyline and link to admissions. By the time the 2020-2021 school year came around, Starmark’s cohesive campaign had garnered significant leads and impressions, while boosting their enrollment numbers by 63%.

North America Silver Award | Starmark: Consumer Promotions Category

Starmark teamed up with client Sightline Payments to promote the company’s proprietary gaming technology product Play+, an FDIC-insured reloadable account used to fund your favorite resort or sports account or daily spending. We executed a re-engagement email campaign designed to inspire current customers to use Play+ to fund their NCAA Finals wagering.

By creating animated gifs, bold graphics and game-driven promotions in our emails, we were able to achieve our client’s main strategic objectives: increase both customer wagering and overall wagering during the NCAA basketball tournament. A massive surge in customer deposits and increased funding proved the campaign to be a smashing success.

“We set the bar high and exceeded expectations. We are really proud of our 2021 wins.”
— Dale Baron, Executive Creative Director at Starmark

About the SMARTIES and SMARTIES X Awards

The SMARTIES and SMARTIES X Award are the highest achievement across North America and the globe honoring and awarding outstanding innovation resulting in significant business impact for brands, agencies, media companies and technology providers. A highly competitive and coveted award, SMARTIES only award to three entries (gold, silver and bronze) in each category. Winners are among the best in the modern marketing community.

Welcome to the new Starmark HQ at The Main

We’re celebrating Starmark’s 25th year in Fort Lauderdale with a move even closer to the heart of the city we call home. And to that note, we’re proud to announce that Starmark HQ is officially open in The Main Las Olas.

Starmark HQ
The Main Las Olas
201 E Las. Olas Blvd.
Suite 1040
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

The new Starmark headquarters is on the 10th floor of the newest Class A office tower in Fort Lauderdale.

Branding The Main Las Olas

Back in 2018, Starmark collaborated with Stiles to develop the brand experience, vision, name and brand mark for The Main. In the years since, our work has won multiple national and international design awards, and we’re thrilled to now call this incredible building home.

“Call it Kismet. Looking back, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to think being so close to this project in its early phases planted a seed in our minds. Because the vision for The Main really captured the excitement and imagination of our team. And the timing was perfect to relocate as Starmark is reinventing where and how we work.”

Call it Kismet. Looking back, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to think being so close to this project in its early phases planted a seed in our minds.
-Jacqui Hartnett, Starmark President

The next phase of Starmark’s Agile evolution

More than six years ago, Starmark made the wholesale transition to Agile Methodology agency-wide. Still today, this is relatively uncommon among agencies, but the improvements to our work, our sense of ownership in our projects, our relationships with clients and our ability to adapt are something we’ll never stop talking about to our industry peers. And that’s probably why the Wall Street Journal interviewed us to see what all the buzz is about.

There’s no such thing as hybrid at Starmark

Being an Agile Agency helped us in immeasurable ways when we made the transition to all remote work in March of 2020. Because, unlike other agencies, our teams were already equipped and experienced at collaborating and coordinating their own two-week sprints, making commitments and owning the work. No project managers refereeing or handing out to-dos. The teams own the work, start to finish.

And now that our new HQ is open, we’re bucking the trend of arbitrarily assigned days in the office and at home. Instead, we’re expanding on our Agile Methodology with a philosophy we call Orbits. It’s a simple idea that feels revolutionary when compared to what the rest of the industry is doing.

Because our teams already plan each sprint, with Orbits we’re simply coordinating how and where to work, based on the work we share and our shared goals for each client. It’s a simple premise that only works because of how we already work differently. You can hear Starmark President, Jacqui Hartnett talk about what we’re up to on the American Advertising Federation’s District 4cast podcast. Or check out our page on Orbits for a slightly deeper dive.

Come see Starmark at The Main

We’d love the chance to show the extended Starmark family our new digs. Get in touch with us to swing by for a tour – or just to spend part of your day in one of the most inspiring new spaces in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

A reunion activation as epic as the big game

Starmark helped PIE — St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport — garner national news attention and social media momentum with a reunion activation inspired by a friendship from the stands of Super Bowl^® LV.

The pre-game commentary

PIE is an international airport situated just 20 minutes from the white-sand beaches of St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Florida. Unfortunately, this well-placed airport is often overshadowed, among both locals and incoming travelers, by the nearby Tampa International Airport.

Our goals for PIE were to improve the airports recognition among locals and incoming travelers, and a chance occurrence at 2021’s biggest sporting event provided the perfect opportunity to create a new kind of cross-country connection.

During Super Bowl LV in Tampa, thousands of fans made a $100 charitable donation to have cardboard cutouts of themselves printed and placed in stadium seats that were left empty to maintain social distancing. Bucs fan and owner of Big Storm Brewery, LJ Govoni, found himself sitting next to the cutout of a Chiefs fan. LJ dubbed him “Frank,” and the two became pals during the game, with LJ tweeting pics and even buying Frank a beer.

After the game LJ used Twitter to find the real “Frank.” They met over Zoom, and LJ invited Frank, a.k.a. Iowa resident Clayton Whipple, to fly down to St. Pete for a reunion and a chance to meet each others’ families.

Starmark partnered with PIE, Visit St. Pete-Clearwater and Allegiant Airlines to make it a trip to remember.

The main event

This partnership covered airfare, hotel and a packed itinerary of family friendly must-sees. But it all started with a VIP welcome at PIE.

Welcome banners and a balloon arch in PIE brand colors were visible from the aircraft, greeting the Whipples as they deplaned. The welcome banners had a special hashtag for the occasion. There was a crowd of cutouts — including LJ and other recognizable faces — to greet them.

The arrival and reunion later in the trip were all captured on video, to be edited and shared via social media and with press contacts. PIE staff were present as ambassadors, wearing STAR badges to greet the family and pose for photos and videos. And the family’s welcome gift included individual mini-PIEs as part of the theme.

Trip Highlights

Big Storm Brewery provided the ideal venue for the reunion and featured the reappearance of our cardboard crowd that welcomed the Whipples at PIE the night before.

We also collaborated with Visit St. Pete-Clearwater to develop a customized, social-media-ready itinerary for Clayton and LJ that highlighted the destination and local businesses, with participating partners featured as stops on the tour. They were each sent a cutout to share their own “Frank” selfies.

We posted a video to social channels that shared Frank’s story, so that it would live beyond the event.

The victory celebration

The event caught fire on both social media and in the press, with the story earned screen time in media with a unique monthly viewership of 59,509,242. Combined with social traction, that’s nearly sixty million impressions for an unforgettable story and the local airport, PIE, that made it possible.

Super Bowl is a registered trademark of NFL, used here, for clarity, under nominative fair use.

Starmark Ranked #1 Creative Agency in North America by Mobile Marketing Association

Starmark proudly announces having earned the top spot as #1 Creative Agency on the 2021-22 Mobile Marketing Association SMARTIES North America Business Impact Index.

Starmark Ranked the Top Agency in North America

The MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index is the first and only global mobile marketing index that identifies, ranks and awards top agencies, advertisers, brands and technology enablers that drive significant business impact through mobile-first campaigns. Brett Circe, Starmark’s Chief Digital Officer, stated:

“We were floored and so honored to be featured as #1 on MMA’s Business Impact Index. It’s a joy and a real validation of our years of dedication to mobile marketing to be here among names like Dentsu, Grey, McCann and Publicis.”

Top Creative Agencies North America 2020

Starmark’s Innovation Lab & Mobile Marketing

The Starmark Innovation Lab keeps Starmark on the edge of marketing technology, revolutionizing and expanding our clients’ possibilities. In 2010, Starmark made a strong push into mobile, including web, payments and apps for our clients.

In 2011, Starmark committed to the MMA Code of Ethics, which applies to everything we do. We have the utmost respect for the MMA and the SMARTIES because they uphold high standards for ethics and performance on the devices that — by their very nature — we each hold close and personal to ourselves. Starmark President, Jacqui Hartnett says:

“When we were featured as #5 in 2017, that was a huge achievement. But it’s been more than 12 years now that we’ve been committed to delivering incredible experiences for mobile, and it feels great to be recognized for that work. I very much look forward to welcoming our friends and clients to the offices of MMA’s #1 Creative Agency in North America at our new HQ in The Main.”

Today, the Lab continues our push into the new technology and experience spaces, with this year’s MMA Smarties entries featuring content in VR, AR, mobile apps and mobile games. The Lab is continuously recognized with a variety of awards, including earning two patents. Among these awards are four SMARTIES from the MMA, Adrian Awards, Visit Florida Henrys, Marcoms, ADDYs and others.

Inspiring Visitors to Meet Together & Feel a World Away

As business operations and travel slowly re-emerged in 2021, meeting planners began reshuffling, replanning and rebooking canceled 2020 events. It was the right time for the Amelia Island CVB (AICVB) to communicate its wide-open, welcoming spaces and ideal event settings, while driving brand awareness and RFP submissions.

Wide-Open Inspiration

As the Starmark team toured the destination and met hoteliers and other stakeholders, it was clear what made this place so special and why meeting planners would want to take advantage of everything the island had to offer. Let’s just say we left the island feeling “inspired.”

The team created a mobile campaign using the theme line, “Island Inspired Meetings”. Based upon key target audience concerns, we focused on open areas and flexible spaces for smaller and larger groups – emphasizing island uniqueness, charm and superior service. Clever headlines, island settings and common meeting vernacular all showcased a place where groups could safely and conveniently convene, yet still feel a world away.

Mobilizing Amelia Island’s Unique Charms

In-feed videos, story ads and an Instant Experience ad all brought Amelia Island’s charms right to meeting planners’ mobile devices. Starmark targeted social platform audiences by industry-related job titles and those expressing interest in meeting & convention planning.

The Instant Experience ad launched a fully-immersive, digital brochure-style mobile experience, engaging audiences with rich storytelling and fast-loading elements.

Static Banner Ads 1 — **Static Banner Ads**

AIC EmailSeries Mobile — **Email Series**

All campaign assets drove to AmeliaIsland.com/meetings, which housed a new video developed and produced by Starmark. Shorter versions of the video were also created to support social media.

AICMeetingsPrint web — **Printed Collateral**

A themed brochure was created as an informational guide for planners to peruse all the benefits of a meeting on Amelia Island. Glossy photos that showcased scenic event locations, unique venues and downtime activities led the storytelling, taking planners through a picture-perfect event scenario.

On the Island, Off the Charts

Video views on LinkedIn garnered an 88% view rate, 4x higher than LinkedIn’s benchmarks
Average Facebook view time was :15 seconds
Users spent an average of 22 seconds engaging with the Instant Experience ad, which also had an average view rate of 70%
Overall social numbers achieved on Facebook and LinkedIn:
- Clicks: 13,276
- Impressions: 614,167
- CTR: 2.69%, 3x higher than industry average
Nearly 150 new RFPs received
Brochure: 40,000+ distribution and pass-along value as a resource planning guide

Adding Even More Success to the Agenda

With numbers that succeeded expectations, meeting planners were indeed “Island Inspired” to book. So were awards show judges. The Amelia Island Meetings Campaign brought home several industry accolades, including top honors at the Visit Florida Governor’s Conference.

Innovative Marketing for Amelia Island Shines at the VISIT FLORIDA Flagler Awards

The Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau and Starmark made an impressive showing at the Flagler Awards ceremony during the 50th annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Created by VISIT FLORIDA and named after pioneering developer and industrialist Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards honor stellar tourism marketing that helps position Florida as a top travel destination.

Henry Award — “Meet Amelia Island” Meetings Campaign

Our efforts to woo meeting planners with the lure of outdoor venues, wide open spaces and exceptional hospitality earned the top honor in the category of Resource/Promotional Material – Trade. The “Meet Amelia Island” campaign presented meeting planners with strategic and tactical elements that spanned several mediums, including a social campaign that consisted of in-feed videos, story ads, an AR portal ad and an Instant Experience ad that captured the essence and charm of Amelia Island. Other elements include animated banner ads, an email campaign and a new 3-minute campaign video.

Social Story Ad

Silver Award — “Amelia Island Escape” Podcast Ad

To leverage an emerging media platform with on-demand flexibility, we ran ads on the New York Times family of podcasts as part of our “Find Your Perfect Moment” campaign for Amelia Island. This is a storytelling medium, so we scripted a :30 ad that painted a mental picture of the island’s breathtaking coastline, sand dunes and island charm that are “perfect for your much-needed escape.” The sensory words captured the sentiment of the campaign as well as the judges’ attention, earning Silver in the Radio Advertising category.

Bronze Award — Branded Hand Sanitizer Stations

Amelia Island, Florida, is always a welcoming place — even during a pandemic. As an extension of the destination’s hospitality, we created branded hand sanitizer stations with the message “Clean Hands. Open Arms.” Strategically placed in public areas, these innovative outdoor displays combined conscientious hygiene and effective branding, earning Bronze in the Out-of-Home category.

Outstanding Tourism Marketing for a Premier Travel Destination

“I’m very proud to see the team’s work recognized among the best in Florida, and the way they and our industry partners continue to find ways to help sustain this community’s most vital industry,” said Gil Langley, president and CEO of the Amelia Island CVB. Likewise, Starmark is always excited to see our efforts move the needle for our clients, while moving the industry forward creatively.

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