Makers of The Metaverse: Laurel Boyd Of Mediahub Worldwide On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Build a team of completely different mindsets and interests. The more similar a group of people, the more similar their ideas will be. Differing opinions and backgrounds get you to the most interesting and unique ideas.

The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Laurel Boyd, Chief Creative Media Officer, Mediahub Worldwide Bio.

A 19-year Mediahub veteran, Laurel has worked across pop culture brands including Netflix, Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports, Chipotle, MTV, and Zappos. Her passion for creativity and innovation compelled her to start the Radical + Disruptive Lab, a discipline solely focused on developing creative media activations that pierce culture and disrupt the industry. The R+D team’s work has won countless accolades including Cannes Lions, Effies and Best in Show at Adweek and Omma award shows. Laurel has also been named Ad Age Media Planner of the Year and was recognized as one of Adweek’s Creative Top 100 in the country.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I was born in Minnesota and spent my first nine years there before moving to Texas where I went to high school and college. I had always been drawn to the East Coast and loved Boston in particular, so I moved out here for grad school and have been here ever since. From a young age, I thought I wanted to be a classical musician (I played the violin until I was 22 and played professionally for a couple years) before completely pivoting and starting a career in advertising.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I’ve always loved A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Each character is so well developed and unique. I also love the notion and theme that we’re all here to fulfill a specific purpose.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

When I was a graduate student at Boston University, a futurist from Harvard came to talk to us about the future of technology. She talked about how we’d be walking down the street one day, and our sunglass lenses would flash offers from a nearby store with discounts on jeans because the glasses would also be connected to our calendars and would know we’re going to a party on Friday and were in need of a new pair of jeans. Obviously, we’re much closer to that reality now, but at the time it sounded particularly magical and something I wanted to explore.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

My team was promoting a sci-fi series on a major streaming platform and the client brief was to do something unique with their key art. So we created lifelike human bodies that were so anatomically correct that they had human hair and motors inside their chest cavities that gave them the illusion of breathing and created heat so that they were warm to the touch. We put them inside bus shelters in a prominent LA location and people were so intrigued that they stopped and pulled their cars over (in rush hour traffic in LA) to take pictures and poke at the bodies.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

A client had purchased a homepage takeover on MSN. I forgot to send a click tracker to the publisher, so the day it launched we had no data on how many people engaged with it for the first few hours (for people who were around in the peak days of portal homepage takeovers, these were quite expensive). At that point, I think I realized I was more inclined for more creative endeavors vs. roles that required any kind of operational expertise.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My music history professor in college. In typical music history classes, you’d learn all about the work itself, how it was composed and the thought process of the composer. But she took it a step further and stressed the importance of how the political and cultural landscape influenced the work. It not only created a deeper understanding of the music but the notion that an artistic output is so intertwined in the cultural landscape is obviously highly applicable to advertising too.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I can’t disclose the exact details, but my team is working on a project that will make space travel more equitable for women. We hope it inspires more women to get involved in space-related fields by breaking down a key barrier in a male dominated field.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

1. Creatively, there are limitless possibilities because you aren’t tied to the laws of physics like you are in real life experiences. I love what Gucci did in their Gucci gardens Roblox experience because it pushed the boundaries of what’s possible on an actual runway where the virtual pieces would morph depending on what was around the avatar.
2. I love that marketing and advertising opportunities haven’t been determined in many of these environments. There is opportunity for thought leadership and for media agencies like us to help shape what those opportunities become.
3. Finally, these platforms have the opportunity to bring unique communities together. I like what Decathalon did with the Swift virtual cycling platform where prison inmates could be on an eCycling team to help them acclimate to civilian life outside of prison. The industry always talks about how these technologies bring people together, but this is an audience that’s totally unexpected and the experience created real value for them.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

Doing things just for the sake of headlines. Anyone can create a virtual storefront for their brand for example. What’s truly interesting is figuring out how these virtual environments can enhance the brand and focusing on that

Ensuring these tech platforms are accessible to more people. A lot of the hardware you need to experience some of these is expensive and not available to everyone. Remembering to embed ways for underrepresented audiences to engage with the tech is super important

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

There are so many interesting ways to think about team building in these environments. Post pandemic, so many companies have remote employees where it’s much more difficult to have in-person events. Things like VR create so many more opportunities for interaction when IRL mingling is impossible, like having VR headsets in another office location where employees at a company party can interact and engage with employees from an office in a different country

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

I love the work that’s being done (particularly in VR) that creates empathy and understanding for people unlike ourselves. Being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes through VR is so much more powerful than trying to explain or convince someone verbally, like this great example that enables you to experience what it’s like to lose your home due to diminishing resources

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

Two big ones:

• That nascent technology platforms, especially things like VR and/or metaverse platforms lack longevity. We’re in the very early stages of these platforms, but they aren’t going anywhere, they’re just going to keep evolving. The key is experimenting early and learn so that when these platforms are mainstream, we’re prepared, and we’ve prepared our clients.
• My team is responsible for creative ideation in these platforms, so I’d like to dispel the myth that not everyone is creative. I love that at Mediahub, the people in disciplines you’d least expect come to the table with amazing ideas. For example, some of our coolest work has come from our video investments team.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

I lead a creative media team at Mediahub, so these are all related to ideation within these environments:

1.Experiment early in new platforms. This is a space where new partners and platforms are in development all the time. Although they might lack scale, there’s an opportunity for big learnings at a lower investment level. And because a lot of these platforms are still trying to figure out how to monetize their technology, there’s room for deeper collaboration that’s mutually beneficial.

2.Build a team of completely different mindsets and interests. The more similar a group of people, the more similar their ideas will be. Differing opinions and backgrounds get you to the most interesting and unique ideas.

3.Make a mental collection of interesting things you come across. There might not be an immediate application, but at some point, there will be an interesting use for them. I have a running list in the notes app on my phone and refer back to them when I’m stuck on something or when I’ve hit a roadblock and am looking for fresh inspiration.

4.Don’t forget to have fun! We’re fortunate to get to play and create in emerging environments and if we’re lucky, it’s with people that we love collabing with. In my opinion, that’s the best part of the job.

5. Find the experts in these spaces and create deeper partnerships with them. We recently entered into a partnership with LandVault, a prominent builder in the metaverse. They significantly augment our metaverse offering and enable us to be much more nimble and agile in the space given their long-standing track record of building in these environments.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Everyone should learn how to play an instrument. I’m obviously biased, but it teaches so many important lessons, like the importance of careful listening, personal expression and self-discipline.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I just listened to “professional troublemaker” by Luvvie Ajayi on audible and loved her advice for living with conviction and courage both professionally and personally. She had such fascinating stories growing up as a Nigerian in America and delivered it with so much vulnerability and humor. I think she’d be incredibly interesting to talk to in person and I’d also love to get a first-hand look at her extensive shoe collection :)

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!