The New York Times has bolstered its T Brand Studio content marketing division with the acquisition of Fake Love, an agency specialising in virtual reality.

Founded by Layne Braunstein and Josh Horowitz in 2010, New York-based Fake Love claims to specialise in “anchoring brands in contemporary culture” via creative programmes, live experiences and virtual and mixed reality.

It has worked with advertisers including American Express, Heineken, Coca-Cola, Bacardi, Samsung and Disney.

It follows the Times’ acquisition of social media marketing agency HelloSociety in March.

The Times’ executive vice president and chief revenue officer Meredith Kopit Levien, said: “In less than three years, T Brand Studio, which is the fastest growing part of our advertising business, has evolved from a content studio that made native advertising into a full-fledged marketing and creative services agency.

“We’ve had a thesis around being able to uniquely support marketers across the whole content marketing supply chain – strategy, creative, distribution and measurement – and this acquisition adds to our ability to deliver extremely complex creative productions.”

Sebastian Tomich, senior vice president, advertising and innovation, added that the acquisition marks a real culminating moment” for the T Brand Studios proposition.

“We’ve worked with Fake Love on projects in the past and have been very impressed with their experiential and creative skills. 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,” said Tomich.

The New York Times is shortlisted for this year’s International Media Brand of the Year at the M&M Global Awards 2016 – click here to vote