Dive Brief:

• The New York Times acquired marketing agency Fake Love, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Fake Love, which focuses on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) marketing, will become part of the Times’ T Brand Studios division, which creates branded content for companies such as Ford, GE, Mini and Emirates.
• The acquisition of Fake Love will enable the T Brand Studios to better integrate VR and AR into advertising.  

Dive Insight:

Virtual and augmented reality are cutting edge marketing technologies, but the viral success of Pokemon Go this summer has brought AR into the mainstream, showing marketers how these technologies can help bridge the online and offline worlds. Now, The New York Times is acquiring a marketing agency focused on VR and AR, with the goal of bolstering its T Brand Studios' VR and AR capabilities for ad campaigns. 

“We’ve worked with Fake Love on projects in the past and have been very impressed with their experiential and creative skills,” Sebastian Tomich, senior vice president of advertising and innovation at The New York Times, said in a statement. “We’re now very excited to pair their capabilities with our ad products on The Times, with T Brand Studio, as we expand into producing campaigns off of The Times and into the fast-growing worlds of VR and AR.”

This is the second agency that The New York Times has bought this year. It previously bought influencer marketing agency HelloSociety, which was also integrated into its T Brand Studios. 

The Times is betting big on branded content, its fastest-growing ad format, as traditional online display advertising has taken a hit. The Times recently reported a dramatic decline in traditional display advertising like banner ads after recording a 7% year-over-year loss in digital ad revenue. Times President and CEO Mark Thompson predicted a return to double-digit growth in digital advertising for the rest of 2016 as the company shifts toward its “digital 2.0” strategy.