1. SXSW 2012 REVIEW
BY MICHELLESADLIER

2. SXSW BY THE NUMBERS
• 24,569 attendees at SXSW
Interactive Week.
• 503, 778 tweets sent this year (up
40% from last year)
• Foursquare won out among
sharing apps used to post to
Twitter, edging out Instagram and
lapping YouTube.
• Highlight – an impressive 75% of
the buzz around social discovery
apps was for ambient awareness
app Highlight.
• 41% of the SXSW Interactive
content sent out via Twitter was
photos. 34% was check-ins.
• 77% of #sxsw tweets posted from
an iPhone, it‘s still king.

3. SXSW THE PICTURES
JAY-Z PERFORMS ANGRY BIRDS AL GORE GIVES
AT AMEX GIG FLASH MOB SPEECH AT SXSW
JUST ONE OF THE ‘KEYNOTE’ JIMMY FALLON HOSTS
NIKE FUEL BAND TALK THE MAIN STREET IN
SPEECHES AT SXSW
AUSTIN

4. KEY PANELS ILLUSTRATED
Ad agency Ogilvy created Ogilvy Notes to capture all the action of
SXSW‘s most interesting panels in a creative way. They sent several
artists to the conference, who sketched key panels in a style known as
visual note-taking.
http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/sxsw-2012-illustrated-panels/

5. SXSW KEY VIDEOS
WHAT IS SXSW?
http://youtu.be/vkQh4Sn89yw
PETE CASHMORE TALKS NEXT BIG THING AT SXSW
http://youtu.be/HR-z6BDtpas
JAY-Z PERFORMS AT SXSW (AMEX)
http://youtu.be/bLK0uOVgzTE
NIKE FUEL PRESENCE SXSW #COUNTS
http://youtu.be/Dph6E0ZpXLY

6. SXSW KEY LEARNINGS

7. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
1. HIGHLIGHT IS SXSW’S MOST BUZZED ABOUT START-UP
This app helps you learn more about the people around you. If someone standing near you also has
Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos, mutual friends and
anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you
have in common with them. If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses
your path, it will tell you more about them.
http://mashable.com/2012/03/14/sxsw-
most-buzz/

8. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
2. SOCIAL MEDIA IN EUROPE COVERS THE SAME PLATFORMS, BUT THE
CULTURAL DIFFERNCES IN BEHAVIOUS COMPARED TO THE US ARE SIGNIFICANT.
Culturally, Europeans separate their work from their private lives. Peak usage times vary, as do
expectations of brands on social platforms. For example, when asked what the circumstances would have
to be to warrant interaction on Facebook, 42% of Europeans reported that they would only engage with a
brand if there was a customer service issue. Contrastingly, in the US, a whopping 40% of people claimed
that they interact with the brands that they purchase from and have an affinity toward.
Fashion and Luxury implications: Europe is often overlooked while brands focus on emerging markets
like Asia, India and Brazil. However, since the platforms are the same (Facebook as opposed to Weibo), it
makes sense to learn how to use the same sites in modified ways to speak more directly and effectively to
the European audience.
http://fashionscollective.com/FashionAndLuxury/03/4-big-ideas-from-sxsw-the-implications-for-
fashion/

9. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
3. DATA IS THE FUTURE
Whether regarding mining specific geo-location data on your smartphone to locate other users (as popular
festival apps like Highlight did), or about using insight data on customers‘ apparel preferences online to
influence buying decisions (like Gap is doing), there is no question that data is the future. Facial
recognition software presented like Face.com or microchips in our brains like Ray Kurzweil spoke about,
make data much more human and personal. An interesting thing to ponder is the implications of
information as extensions of us. Currently, we have instant access to data through our smartphones, but
how will this impact the way we view this data and our own intelligence? Will we separate information we
access from our own intellectual thoughts or adopt it as a product of ourselves?
Fashion and Luxury implications: In our industry, there is a constant focus on the image, whether the
brand persona, the actual visuals or the appearance of exclusivity. However, it is the real data that will help
inform us and drive business forward. Rather than start with the image, if we start with an understanding of
information that tells us more about how users interact online, higher return on investment can be
achieved, along with a more customized user experience.
http://fashionscollective.com/FashionAndLuxury/03/4-big-ideas-from-sxsw-the-implications-for-
fashion/

10. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
4. THE RISE OF THE CONNECTED FAN
Digital media has reshaped the fashion industry, runway shows have become a spectator sport for the mass consumer and as it
turns out there is a lot fashion can learn from the world of sports and the rise of the digitally connected sports fan.
‗The Sports Fan in 2015‘ panel presented by Richard Ting and Kyle Bunch of digital agency R/GA outlined how the internet is
breaking down the borders between fans and players, giving rise to a number of trends.
Fashion and Luxury implications: The first is the emergence of ―crowdsourced coaching‖ in which fans and coaches make
collective decisions, for example which players should start a game. Imagine, for a moment, fashion fans collectively influencing
which model was to open a hotly anticipated show. Also on the horizon is the growth of ―remote fandom via telepresence,‖ meaning
that fans following a game online, no matter where they are in the world, can make their presence felt inside the physical stadium,
influencing, for example, what appears on jumbotron screens. Could this concept be adapted and incorporated into a runway
show?
Frictionless sharing via near field communication (NFC), another innovation soon coming to the sports arena, could let fashion
editors auto-tweet their arrival at shows just by tapping their phones as they enter a venue, while the explosion of second screen
apps that‘s set to enrich the sports experience with access to live stats and multiple camera angles could offer these same editors
new tools to transmit the excitement of runway shows to fans and followers.
http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/03/looking-back-at-sxsw-interactive.html

11. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
5. THE REAL WINNERS: AMEX AND NIKE
It was neither young start-ups nor technology giants — who erected branded spaces like Google
Village and Microsoft‘s Bing Lot — but Nike and American Express who were the biggest winners at
this year‘s conference. Both brands delivered well-executed consumer experiences that struck a chord
with attendees and generated an explosion of positive buzz on social media.
Demonstrating the company‘s brand promise, ―Membership has its privileges,‖ American Express gave
cardholders who synced their cards to their Twitter accounts a chance to attend a Jay-Z concert at
Austin‘s W hotel.
Nike made its first official appearance at SXSW this year. The brand erected basketball courts,
skateboard parks, motion-responsive billboards, an Apple-like pop-up store that morphed into a night
time concert venue and a skyscraper-scale app that measured and projected the collective energy
level of dancing concert-goers, in realtime, onto the Frost Bank Building in downtown Austin — all to
promote the launch of Nike‘s new activity-tracking FuelBand.
http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/03/looking-back-at-sxsw-interactive.html

12. SXSW KEY LEARNINGS
6. GOOGLE = IS BEING USED – SO SAYS GOOGLE.
Despite recent reports that Google+ (GOOG) users spend a mere 3.3 minutes there a month,
rendering it a virtual "ghost town," engineering chief Vic Gundotra argued the service is one of the
fastest growing the company has ever launched. Gundotra reported that 50 million individual users log
onto Google+ each day, and 100 million users sign in at least once a month, with a lot of social
network activity happening privately among users. (He didn't however, specify how much time they're
actually spending on it.)
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/14/sxsw/

13. SXSWKEY LEARNINGS
7. FASHION’S GREATEST CHALLENGE LIES IN REALIGNING PRODUCTION WITH
COMMUNICATIONS
I hosted a panel at SXSW entitled ‗Who Needs A Fashion Cycle? I‘ve Got Social Media‘ where we discussed
the future of the current production and communication process.
―If I were the CEO of a major fashion brand today, my focus would be on trying to compress the production
cycle so it realigned with communications,‖ Imran Amed, founder and editor of The Business of Fashion, said
at the panel.
We are at the beginning of a seismic change in the way consumers communicate with each other, make
decision, and ultimately purchase. It‘s only by changing the operational side of what we do that we‘re going to
be able to catch up.
The current way the fashion cycle operates means that brands are missing out on capturing that “intent
to purchase at the point of inspiration.
Amed suggested creating two separate events around the shows. One small and quiet for trade to see the
season ahead, and the other a big, all-out affair for consumers, timed so it‘s in sync with the actual season. So
in other words, shifting the position of the fashion show as we know it today, so it sits at the end of the cycle
rather than the beginning.