As Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and other major employers issue mandates to herd their remote workers back to the office, one Chicago-based company is opting for the carrot over the stick.
Celebrity video messaging website Cameo is offering its Chicago-area employees a $10,000 raise to return from their scattered spare bedrooms and coffee shops to the company’s Fulton Market office full-time beginning Monday.
Those who opt out, however, may need to find a new job.
“We believe people are more valuable in person,” said Steven Galanis, 37, Cameo’s co-founder and CEO. “This is an idea that I think solves a lot of the problems that so many CEOs are facing, and frankly, a lot of workers are too.”
Launched in 2017, Cameo pioneered an online platform for fans to buy personalized video greetings from an eclectic group of stars, rocketing to unicorn status during the pandemic when lockdowns and social distancing turned everything from funeral services to bris ceremonies into virtual events.
The current Cameo talent roster features thousands of celebrities, including actors, athletes, comedians, musicians and social media influencers, ranging from Martin Kove, the evil sensei from “Karate Kid,” to disgraced former congressman George Santos.
“During COVID, our business really exploded,” Galanis said. “Every single athlete, actor, celebrity on Earth was out of work, and they were just more available. People were looking for a way to send digital love, and Cameo was certainly the answer.”
In March 2021, after closing a $100 million funding round, Cameo’s valuation peaked at just over $1 billion, fueling expansion efforts and a hiring surge.
But Cameo struggled in the post-pandemic landscape, losing money and slashing costs through three rounds of layoffs during 2022 and 2023 that reduced the headcount from 347 employees in 38 states and 13 countries down to skeleton staff of 32 workers.
Cameo has since rebounded to 50 employees, including 26 in the Chicago area, after stabilizing operations and turning a profit last year, Galanis said.
In July, Cameo moved into a spacious 20,000-square-foot office in the city’s trendy Fulton Market district, housed on the first two floors of a converted century-old five-story warehouse. The new digs are twice as large as Cameo’s previous office in River North, leaving plenty of room for the two dozen or so employees to operate.
Things should get a little busier Monday, when all 26 Chicago-area employees must clock in as part of the new deal. So far, no one has balked at the $10,000 raise and return-to-office mandate, Galanis said.
Employees need to be in the office Monday through Thursday and can work remotely Friday. To sweeten the incentive, Cameo is also providing a daily catered lunch, an adjacent gym membership and parking, all for free.
In addition, Cameo is offering its out-of-market workers the opportunity to shift to the Chicago office, get the $10,000 raise and a $5,000 bonus to defray moving expenses.
The return on the $260,000-plus annual investment, Galanis said, is improved productivity, mentoring opportunities and esprit de corps.
Across the broader corporate landscape, it remains to be seen whether incentives or ultimatums will bring employees back to the office full-time, five years after COVID made remote and hybrid work a standard part of many jobs, turning some downtown business districts into ghost towns.
Chicago office buildings are at 56% of pre-pandemic occupancy levels, according to the latest weekly report by Kastle Systems. Meanwhile, many downtown Chicago office buildings have a lot of empty office space, with direct and sublease availability at a record 30.8% during the fourth quarter, according to real estate services firm Avison Young.
After years of fits and starts, more major employers are implementing return-to-office mandates in 2025, and this time they mean business.
Online retail giant Amazon flipped the switch in January, requiring its 350,000 corporate employees to be in the office five days a week, while JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, followed suit with a March deadline for more than 300,000 employees to return full-time.
Meanwhile, President Trump signed an executive order last month requiring all federal employees to return to work in-person on a full-time basis “as soon as practicable.”
Many employees have shown some resistance to return-to-work mandates. As of Friday, more than 1,500 JPMorgan Chase employees, for example, had signed an online petition arguing for a continuation of hybrid work policies.
A study by the Pew Research Center reflecting on the lingering impact of COVID-19 found that 46% of employees who work from home at least some of the time would likely leave their jobs if forced to return to the office full-time.
“There’s a disconnect between workers and employers,” said Kim Parker, Pew’s director of social trends research. “Workers love the work-life balance they get from the flexibility of being able to work from home. Employers are like, ‘We get more out of you if you are in the office.’”
However, Parker said threats to leave may not translate into action, especially in an environment in which employees perceive that new jobs are harder to get than they were a few years ago.
Offering financial incentives could soften the blow for employees unhappy with return-to-office mandates.
“The thing that people are most dissatisfied about in their jobs is their pay or their salary,” Parker said. “Financial incentives are a way to meet people where their biggest pain points are, but I don’t know if it’s enough to get them to come back in five days a week.”
Cameo has been something of an itinerant company since its inception at Chicago tech incubator 1871. Its first office at 400 N. Aberdeen St. was sold and razed to build Fulton Labs, a gleaming 16-story life sciences high-rise that opened in 2022.
The company was close to signing a 10-year-lease at another Fulton Market property in March 2020 but held off as the pandemic hit, opting to go fully remote with its rapidly growing business.
“We were homeless during COVID,” Galanis said.
During the first year of the pandemic in 2020, Cameo generated 1.3 million recorded celebrity messages for customers and $100 million in gross revenue, according to a fundraising presentation at the time.
In July 2022, Cameo moved into new offices on the seventh floor of the massive former Sports Authority building at 620 N. LaSalle Drive in River North, looking to reel in its Chicago-area employees on a voluntary basis.
It also expanded into new ventures, including live video chats akin to a celebrity Zoom call, a feature that has since been “deprioritized” in favor of the core video recordings business, Galanis said.
But business went south as the country emerged from the pandemic, with Cameo losing significant money in 2022, Galanis said. The downsizing began in earnest with two rounds of layoffs that year, and a third in July 2023.
While Galanis declined to disclose revenues, a leaner Cameo sold 751,000 celebrity greetings in 2024 and made it back into the black after several years of operating losses.
The company also moved to its new Fulton Market home at 320 N. Elizabeth St., signing a 6½-year lease for twice the space at a lower cost than in its previous building, Galanis said.
“Obviously, it’s a really good time to be looking for commercial real estate in Chicago,” he said.
Cameo, which has raised $190 million from investors to date, takes a 25% to 30% commission from each transaction.
One new vector for growth has been opening up the platform to stars much further down the alphabet than B-List status. In fact, anybody can hang out a shingle and try to sell video messages on Cameo, which now has a bargain bin of wannabe celebrities ranging from fringe social media influencers to a Goldendoodle puppy.
“We’ve moved to a model that’s closer to how TikTok or Instagram or YouTube work,” Galanis said. “Anyone in the world can come on and if they get booked, they can become a star.”
Back in growth mode, Cameo is also putting out a “help wanted” sign again. Jobs include joining a mostly younger sales force that solicits celebrities for the platform, as well as technical and administrative positions.
Beginning Monday, job requirements/perks will include working full-time in the only Chicago office selling personalized video messages from Brian Baumgartner/Kevin of “The Office.”
