mry's sxsw 2015 recap: brands, tech, meerkat, trends, and meerkat

SXSW Interactive 2015Recap

SXSW 2015:Brands, Meerkat, Tech,

Trends, and Meerkat

David Berkowitz

CMO, MRY

@dberkowitz / @MRY

David.Berkowitz@mry.com

www.mry.com

What we’ll cover today

• Overview

• Brands

• Meerkat

• Tech

• Meerkat

• Observations from MRY’s team

• Further reading / contact info

Source: National Geographic

Overview

Correlation implies causation

Meerkating Busta Rhymes with Gen Z is IN!

Source: Digiday (much longer list there)

Not everyone’s there for marketing ideas and

tech innovation

Source: Beats by Dre on Twitter

Mazda, CBS, Capital One go for the tried and true

value-add: offering free rides

Source: SXSW. CBS, Capital One on Twitter

The real value of SXSW: “Collisions”

“This remains the best part of SXSW. The collision of ideas and

people make SXSW the closest thing to a “weekend of

enlightenment” we have in this new digital age. People from all

over the world, at all levels in their organizations, with all

backgrounds, are getting together to share their perspectives, and

are generally all accessible.”

- Ian Schafer, Deep Focus

Source: Ian Schafer on Medium

Brands

Brands come out of hibernation for SXSW

Source: Business Insider

not meerkats

SXSW: Where transmedia meets trans fats

“We are not where we need to

be when it comes to being seen

as a digitally innovative

company. Everyone expects two

guys in a garage to come up

with ideas. We want to be part

of that flow of ideas,”

McDonald’s senior vice

president of digital, Atif Rafiq

said.Source: TechCrunch

Simpsons Kiwk-E-Mart truck serves 2.6 Squishees

per minute (>3,000 total)

Source: Eater

When in doubt, offer free donuts

Source: Esurance on Twitter

Taco Bill launches a pop-up shop made of

shipping containers

Source: Fast Company

Provide value: AT&T doubles cell capacity with ‘giant

eyeball’

Source: Fast Company

Mophie rescues the powerless with Saint Bernards

bearing batteries

Source: Mashable / Chris Taylor

Pedicabs are coming

Source: Business Insider

Visa bolsters commitment to Austin at its

Everywhere Lounge

“There’s something

that’s in the well

water of Austin that

makes it a very

kinetic environment,

physically and

culturally.”-Visa Chief Brand and

Innovation Marketing

Officer Chris Curtin in

Forbes

Source: Forbes

Tinder bot preying on Austin dating scene actually a

bot promoting movie “Ex Machina”

Source: VentureBeat

3M gives SXSW’ers hands-on experience designing

bags, sterilizing phones, and posting notes

Source: 3M / Engadget / Jenny Stoltenow al on Twitter

What is GE smoking? With a 12-foot-tall smoker, it

optimized ‘cue and got brainwave scans of eaters

Source: Business Insider (left) / CraveOnline (right)

NASA’s SXSW universe included 11 sessions, a

meetup, an IMAX screening, and an exhibit

Source: NASA / Chris Gunn

Global showcase had Brazil doubling presence to 59

companies exhibiting, hosted Casa Brasil venue

Source: Variety / Gretel Perera on Twitter

Agencies (ahem) are among brands taking over SXSW

“SXSW… is about marketers marketing their marketing

efforts to other marketers… And of course, agencies have

their own branding to do. Take, for example, the agency

MRY’s house in downtown Austin, where rapper Nas

appeared Saturday night.”

-The Wall Street Journal: “Brands, Web Video Creators

Take over SXSW”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Hootsuite combines two essential needs of SXSW:

beer and transportation

Source: Hootsuite on Twitter

Broken Windex theory: brand touts “break the

internet” meme but won’t allow use of word “gluteus”

Source: @dberkowitz

Tech

Meerkat is everywhere – including MRY Manor

(it didn’t launch at SXSW but did capture all the buzz)

Source: TechCrunch/ Anthony Quintano

Long-term success for Meerkat questionable, but it’s a

feat that a tiny, new startup dominated SXSW

“I don’t really care about being a

hit at South by Southwest. What

was important for us coming

here was to acknowledge the

fact that we came from nothing

just two weeks ago.” -Meerkat founder Ben Rubin in

The New York Times

Source: New York Times / Ben Rubin

Beacons, often invisible, power SXSW meetups

Source: Ad Age

Mobile shifts to integration focus

“Mobile marketing professionals on a panel discussing

meaningful mobile experiences pleaded to remove

‘mobile’ from their titles, saying it’s about integrated

marketing, of which mobile is a critical piece. Mobile

can’t be thought of separately anymore, and

brands must bring mobile, digital, traditional

branding teams together to solve problems.”

- Wunderman’s Alyse Craun, “Know for Sure”

Source: Alyse Craun, Wunderman

Messaging app YikYak downplays cyberbullying usage;

founder notes “Kids are kind of stupid”

Source: TechCrunch

Mint.com founder Aaron Patzer showed off his new

company, Fountain, sourcing experts for a small fee

Source: Fountain

Transhumanist Martine Rothblatt envisions future of

human immortality thanks to “mind clones”

“Transhumanism is a movement with the eventual goal extending human life past natural death through the use of technology. In Rothblatt’s case, her belief that we are close to cyber consciousness is represented by ’BINA48,’ the robot, cyber conscious version of her real-life wife, Bina Rothblatt. BINA48, is the first step in creating an artificial intelligent ’mind clone,’ expressing a real person’s mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values. Rothblatt believes that BINA48 will likely reach full cyber consciousness in the future.” – SXSW.com

Source: SXSW.com / LifeNaut on YouTube

Biggest protests at SXSW? Boycotting robots

“What did they have against

robots you might ask? Well,

they are (apparently, seriously)

concerned that robots could

one day surpass human

intelligence and they were

genuinely anxious about this.”

- TechCrunch

Source: TechCrunch

VR is bigger than Oculus: Google Cardboard +

Beyond Sports features soccer match simulations

Source: USA Today

Did we mention Meerkat yet? Just in case… Meerkat!

Source: Meerkat

Does it count as a wearable if you’re terrified to wear it?

Source: USA Today

‘Launching Next Week’ is the new ‘Launching at SXSW’

“Better to wait, according to Chris Heuer,

CEO of Alynd, who believes ‘launching after

SXSW is the new launching at SXSW.’ Why

compete with the social crowds when you

can use the week of SXSW to build buzz

and then follow up after with a full fledged

launch designed to work for your audience?

He believes in the benefits of this cadence

so strongly that he’s created a platform to

support it: launchingnextweek.com. A

simple mailing list that will keep all early

adopters in the loop about what’s, well,

launching next week.”

- Sprinklr

•Source: Sprinklr

SXSW institutes “drone-free zone”

Fly a drone, risk arrest: “SXSW has a strict no drones policy due to the safety risks drones present to the public, and pursuant to City of Austin Ordinance, Chapter 13-1. ”

- SXSWSource: SXSW

Startup pitch contests trot out wearables

“There were around 80 Shark Tank-styled startup contests this year, and

they produced a long parade of wearables pitches.”

-Adweek

Source: Adweek

Wearables to merge with fashion

“The next hot wearable might be the one

no one knows you’re wearing. Experts

predict a wave of smart fabrics and e-

textiles that do what FitBits and Apple

Watches now...

“…I see technology and fashion

becoming one,’ says Billie Whitehouse,

co-founder of Wearable Experiments, a

company integrating fashion and

technology. ‘We're heading in the

direction where everything becomes

invisible.’”

- Entrepreneur

Source: Entrepreneur

“The Internet of Things Is Becoming an Actual Thing”

- Adweek

Source: Adweek

The happiness scorecard for SXSW Music vs Interactive

Observationscollected from the MRY team attending SXSW

Kate Bryan, Marketing

People were really into staying

healthy. There were a lot of brands

on the ground that were sponsoring

workout classes or promoting health

and wellness in some way –

Reebok, Equinox, etc. I heard a lot

of people taking it easier on the

eating/drinking to make it to a class

the next day.

Source: Adrian Grenier on Twitter

Michelle Excell, Project Management (MRY West)

Wanelo founder Deena Varshavskaya

[pictured at right] revealed she never

finished college, but then went on to say

she wished she’d left much earlier. When

questioned about this, she explained that

she thought there were two types of

people, those who strove to make others

happy – teachers, bosses – and those

who strove to make themselves happy.

She exclusively hires the latter.”

Source: LinkedIn

Karen Flanagan, Client Service

I kept noticing Millennials’ and

technology's impact on literally

everything – the music we listen to,

how we listen to it or find out about it,

human interactions, live events of

every sort, and the reality that it's the

experience and sharing of said

experience that matters most. It’s

living for the share. As [MRY CEO]

Matt Britton says, DIFTI – “Did It For

The Instagram.” Absolutely perfect.

Source: Youthnation on Facebook

Carrie Cervati, Talent Acquisition

It was interesting to hear at a panel I

attended that freelancing is going to take

over the creative world. Creatives are

going to rely less on full-time jobs and more

on freelance, based on the fact that they

can make a lot more money , build their

portfolios with different brands and have the

opportunity to work on a multitude of clients

and not get bored on one specific brand for

an extended period of time.

Source: TechZulu on Twitter

Andrew Udin, Legal

This year, more so than others, saw a

melding of all three components of

SXSW (music, film, and interactive) during

the SXSWi portion. There were large

music acts and high(ish) profile films being

featured, all before the music and film

portions of the festival even started.

Source: MRY on Twitter, featuring Busta Rhymes

Nick Gauchat, Product

The ability to develop apps and other

technologies quickly has changed the

perception of prototyping and creative

technology labs. Developers and

marketers are interested in building

things and getting them into market

right away rather than creating a

proof of concept. There is less of a

gap between proving something can

be done and actually doing it and that

has now become the standard.

Source: Jive Software on Twitter, featuring Cosmopolitan Style Lab

Eli Pakier, Strategy

Given the expanse of the web, there is

literally an answer for everything, but

there is a problem: we don’t always

know the right question to ask.

Search is great when we have an

answer in mind. But what about when

you don’t know what you’re looking

for? How can we better anticipate

what we don’t even know to ask for?

Source: Sarah M. Vasquez on Twitter, featuring El Arroyo

Steven Cuartas Cano, Client Service

With new wearable technology and apps coming out, we’re actually able to add more details to the stories behind the photos we capture. For instance, you go on a hike while wearing a Suntoo Watch to capture how many steps you took on the way to that photo you took at the top of the mountain. Using the Suunto Movie, they create a 3D Mapped video of your hike using the photos you took on the trail. Combined with the Narrative Clip, you can capture moments leading up the hike without even having to think to take the photo.

Wrapping up

SXSW coverage highlights

• Ad Age / Unmetric: Watch Top Brands and Agencies Live-Tweet #SXSW

• Adweek: 10 Intriguing Things That Helped SXSW Rock Again

• AP: Trending at SXSW: Mind Cloning, Off-the-Grid Messaging

• Business Insider: The Best Things Tech Companies Did to Get Attention at the World’s Wildest Tech Conference, SXSW

• Digiday: What’s in and Whats’ out for SXSW

• Fortune: What You Missed at SXSW This Year

• Sprinklr: The 6 Hottest Trends and Insights from SXSWi 2015

• SXSW: Interactive Innovation Award winners

• TechCrunch: At SXSW, Meerkat Beats McDonald’s at Cutting through the Noise

• USA Today: Coolest Tech at SXSW (gallery)

• International Business Times: SXSW 2015: TV Networks Spend Big in Austin to Attract ‘Influencers’

So long, and thanks for all the meerkat

David Berkowitz, CMO, MRY

@dberkowitz / @MRY

David.Berkowitz@mry.com

www.mry.com

www.marketersstudio.com

Meerkat: Meerkatmry / Meerkatdberkowitz